Reunion
by Fluffy-CSI
Summary: FINISHED chapter 17 up. Goren decides to attend his HS reunion. Guess who he brings as a date... BA
1. Susan Alexander

A/N: Nothing new in this chapter, just corrected some time-related canon errors...thanks Angelfirenze!

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He watched her carefully as she strolled into the squad room. She'd taken off her blazer to accommodate the warm weather she walked to work in, and now she wore only a tightly-fitted red tank top above her tailored black pants. The butt of her service weapon broke the slim lines of her outfit, but he was used to that and hardly noticed it, choosing instead to use these precious few seconds to study the muscles of her upper arms, displayed to their full effect by the tank top and flexing as she adjusted the bag she was carrying. He always found himself impressed by those arms, despite having seen them almost every day for five years; few women could show such strength without even opening their mouths.

He tore his eyes away as she approached, glancing around the room aimlessly before returning his eyes to her and giving her a friendly smile. "Good morning."

She dropped the bag on her desk, brushed her hair out of her eyes, and smiled back. "Morning. Coffee?"

"I started it brewing when I got in. It should be ready by now," he told her as he stood up. "I was just about to check. I'll get yours while I'm there."

Her eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch; it was unlike either of them to actually volunteer to make a coffee run. But who was she to look a gift horse in the mouth? "Uh, sure. Thanks," she said, offering him another smile. "A tiny bit of cream and -"

"And two sugars," he finished. "I know." He grinned at the dirty look she gave him, then turned and headed for the coffeepot.

A few minutes later he was back, setting her mug down in front of her. "Here you go."

"Thanks," she mumbled without looking up from the report she'd been studying.

"Mmm." He returned to his own desk and slid into his chair, taking up his customary position leaning back with his legs outstretched. After a few seconds, he unzipped his portfolio and looked again at the invitation he'd slipped into the front of it before leaving home:

_Benjamin Franklin H.S._

_Cordially invites ROBERT GOREN and guest to a reunion for the class of 1979_

_Location: Marriott Marquis, 1535 Broadway, New York, New York_

_Date: November 6, 2005_

_Cocktail hour: 6 PM_

_Banquet: 7:30 PM_

_Dress is semi-formal_

_Please RSVP to 555-2163 by Nov. 1_

He detested reunions, avoided them as often as possible. He'd escaped the last three of his high school class, as well as the the twentieth reunion of his college class a few years ago, by simply ignoring the ornate invitations the organizers insisted on sending him.

He'd planned to continue doing that for as long as the schools kept sending invitations, but he'd had the unfortunate luck of running into this reunion's organizer in a deli two days ago. Susan Alexander had insisted on handing him his invitation then and there, along with a promise that "I have your contact information, Bobby. I expect to see you at the reunion or I'll use it!"

He could still avoid it; after all, he had caller ID and locks on his doors and could easily prevent the woman from hunting him down, but to his disgust, he found himself curious. Susan Alexander, who he had once gone on two dates with, had grown into a woman nothing like he had thought she'd become. Back then, she'd been a rough-edged girl from the Bronx, keenly interested in biology, but when he'd run into her at the deli he had been faced with a well-to-do woman wearing an Hermes scarf who had cooed a "hellooooo" at him in sugary accents that bore no resemblance to her original street dialect.

And he began to wonder who else he'd been wrong about. He knew reunions were, to most people, a chance to show off their accomplishments and their arm candy, neither of which he had any interest in, but Susan's changed appearance had provided a new impetus for him: a review of sorts, a way to find out how accurate his profiling skills had been before they were honed through his training.

Which brought him to where he sat now, staring at the invitation and wondering exactly how he was going to ask his partner to accompany him without having it sound like a proposition or an act of desperation. And what exactly did "semi-formal" mean, anyway?

"Earth to Goren," the object of his thoughts interrupted, leaning across her desk toward his. "Come in, Goren."

"Huh?" he managed, looking up at her.

She grinned. "You were completely zoned out. Go on, I'm waiting for you to tell me you were perfecting the art of solving cases without moving out of your chair."

He shook his head. "Sorry. I think you've got me confused with Miss Marple."

She snorted. "You'd be kind of hard to confuse with a little old lady with an English accent. So, if you weren't solving a case, what were you so absorbed in?"

Drawing in a breath, he pulled the invitation out of his portfolio and tossed it toward her. She picked it up and examined both sides, then raised her eyebrows. "I thought you didn't do reunions," she said, sliding the card back to him.

"I usually don't."

"So then why were you concentrating so hard on the invitation?"

He shrugged self-consciously. "I'm curious to see how people turned out. I ran into an old, uh, friend the other day and she got me thinking."

"An 'uh, friend,' huh?" Eames said, wiggling her eyebrows. "I see where this is going."

"She's married," he said dismissively. "It's just that she's the polar opposite of what I thought she'd grow up to be, so now I'm curious about the rest of the class."

"You want to test yourself? Why doesn't that surprise me?" She shook her head. "Don't bother answering that. You still haven't told me what's so intriguing about it that you're daydreaming at work."

"I wasn't daydreaming. I was . . . considering."

"Whether to go or not?" she asked.

He shook his head and picked up the invitation, circling the words _and guest _and handing it back to her. "Not quite."

A smirk appeared on her face. "You're trying to think of who you can bring? I would have thought you'd have any number of girls lined up for the chance."

"I'm sure I could find someone if it was just a matter of needing anyone."

". . . But it's not?"

"Well, it's a reunion. You're supposed to put your best foot forward, I don't want to bring someone who I don't know and trust."

She sighed. "You afraid your date's gonna ruin your reputation with your classmates?"

"Not exactly." He searched his mind for a good way to ask her, but came up blank. "I was, uh . . . actually wondering if you might be free that night?"

She recoiled slightly, shocked. "Me?"

"Uh, yeah," he said, looking away and clearing his throat. "You're . . . a more interesting companion."

". . . Than your typical bar bimbo? Gee, I'm overwhelmed."

"No! I mean that you're . . . a very nice person, and you'd get along well with people, and I can, uh, trust you."

She cocked her head to the side, studying his face. "You're big on the trust thing, huh."

This was not going as well as he'd hoped. Time to get himself out of this hole. "It was just an idea. If you don't want to come, then that's that," he said, slipping the invitation back into his portfolio.

"Hey, I didn't say I wouldn't go!" she said. "I was just teasing you. What was the date, again?"

"November sixth."

She took a moment to consult her Outlook calendar. "I haven't got any plans. I'm all yours if you want me."

He blinked. "Really?"

"Yeah," she said with a laugh. "But you're buying the drinks."


	2. Jimmy Willis

A/N: If any of you have read some of my older stories, you might recognize Alex's outfit. Yes, I have an obsession with that style for some reason...

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He arrived at her apartment at five in the evening, tugging at his tie like an anxious teenager while he waited for her to open the door. He'd seen his partner dressed up before, usually for work events, but she hadn't told him what she was going to wear tonight and he found himself both curious and nervous to find out.

The click of the door latch pulled him out of his reverie. "Hi," she said over her shoulder as she turned to lock the door behind her. "Right on time."

He stared at her back and tried to process her words. It was difficult, given that he was looking, literally, at her back - the skin itself, with hardly any cloth covering it. The tight pants she was wearing didn't help, either. "Uh, hi."

She turned and grinned at him. "Do I look ok? I wasn't sure how formal 'semi-formal' needed to be."

Thankful for the excuse to take a closer look, he took a moment to make a circle around her. Her shot-silk top, which left her back bare except for three ties at the neck, mid-back, and waist, was cut modestly in the front, much like her usual tank tops. A row of embroidered flowers ran along the bottom hem of the shirt, which barely covered the waistband of her matching silk pants, on which he thought he saw a hint of matching embroidery. "You look, uh . . . very nice. I'm impressed."

She rolled her eyes as she followed him out of the building to where he'd parked his car, noticing that he had put his badge in the corner of the windshield so no one would ticket his semi-legal parking job. "You were doing good up until 'I'm impressed,' but I'll assume you meant well. You don't look bad yourself, although I have to say I'm jealous that you didn't have to wear anything more formal than your usual suit."

"Well, I wouldn't look nearly as good as you do in that," he said with a straight face, nodding at her outfit.

"Funny," she said with a snort. "So, do I need to be briefed on what to expect or how you want me to act? Am I playing your girlfriend?"

He paused in pulling away from the curb to stare at her. "Pardon?"

"Well, I'm assuming you don't want people to think you couldn't or wouldn't find anyone to bring except your partner. If that's the case, I expect you'd want me to play up the clinginess and stuff."

"Uh . . ." He hadn't considered that. Not that he particularly cared about what his classmates thought of his love life, but . . .

He glanced over at her, noting again how beautiful she looked. It _would _be an ego boost to have people think she was his, and they'd never encounter any of these people again. It would be a harmless prank . . .

"Hello?" she said, waving a hand to regain his attention. "It's not a big deal, either way. We've done the 'couple' thing before during investigations."

"Well I . . . wasn't planning on it, but you have a point, and uh, if it's not a problem for you . . ." he stammered.

"Relax, Bobby. It'll be fun, trust me. Besides me, consider what else you've got going for you: you've got a good job, you're in shape, your hair isn't gray, and you're not addicted to drugs or alcohol . . . Trust me when I tell you you're already ahead of three-quarters of the people we're going to see there."

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"Bobby!" a voice squealed before they even entered the ballroom. "Over here!"

Alex raised her eyebrows, watching the expensively-dressed blonde approach. "Is that the 'uh, friend'?"

"Yeah," he managed, wondering again what had possessed him to come to this reunion. "She's, uh . . ."

"Bobby Goren!" the woman interrupted him as she laid a hand on his arm. "I wasn't sure if you'd actually come."

"Hi, Susan." He noticed that she was eyeing Alex curiously. "Alex, this is Susan Alexander. Susan, this is Alex, my . . . uh . . ."

Alex gave him a gentle elbow in the ribs and held out her hand to the other woman. "He's a commitment-phobe," she said with a sigh. "I'm his girlfriend, Alex Eames."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Alex. Bobby didn't mention he was taken when I saw him the other day!"

Amused at the shade of red his face was turning, she simply shrugged. "Like I said, commitment-phobe. But he means well. Right, hon?" she said, looking up into his face with a grin.

"Uh, sure."

"My, how the times have changed. I would never have pegged you as someone who'd be afraid to commit to a girl," Susan said, giving him a pat on the arm and turning to lead them farther into the room "Come on, there's lots of people you need to see."

Alex glanced at him as they followed her. "Not afraid to commit back then, huh? What went wrong?"

He frowned. "Who says I'm afraid to commit now?"

"I says," she mimicked. "You're forgetting that I've been observing you for years."

"That's not tr-"

"Bobby!" They both looked up at Susan, who had come to a halt next to a short man sporting salt-and-pepper hair. "You remember Jimmy Willis, don't you?"

Alex felt him stiffen slightly next to her and realized that however the two men had gotten along back then, they didn't seem to like each other now. Time to turn on the charm. Going on tiptoe, she pulled Bobby's head down slightly so she could whisper in his ear, "Not a friend, huh? Let's blow him away."

He gave her a startled look and smiled, then looked at the other man and inclined his head slightly. "Jimmy."

"Hey, Bobby Goren!" the man said jovially, holding out a hand. He had to tilt his head back to look Goren in the face. "You haven't shrunk at all."

"And you haven't grown," Bobby said neutrally.

There was a moment of awkward silence before Alex rolled her eyes and tugged on his hand. "Bobby, honey, introduce me!"

Willis's eyes moved to her and widened slightly. "Yes, Bobby, introduce us," he said, not looking away from her.

Alex fought the urge to burst out laughing. For someone well into his forties, the man had surprisingly little finesse. She laced her fingers through Bobby's and squeezed, allowing herself a moment of surprise at how his hand completely enveloped hers.

He gave a quick answering squeeze and pulled her forward slightly so she was in front of him. "Jimmy Willis, Alexandra Eames."

The man took her free hand and gave it a caress disguised as a shake. "Your wife?" he asked Bobby without looking at him.

"Not yet," she said with a saccharine smile, taking her hand back. "I'm still working on him."

"Interesting," he said. "So, Bobby, what have you been doing with yourself? I don't remember seeing you at the last reunion."

"I, uh, haven't had a lot of free time," Bobby started hesitantly.

Alex sighed. She supposed she shouldn't be surprised at his reticence - he'd always seemed to dislike talking about himself - but didn't he know that at reunions you were expected to brag? Well, if he wouldn't do it, then the job fell to her. "Oh, I'm sure you've read about him in the papers," she broke in. "The high-profile cases get written up a lot."

"Cases?" Willis said with raised eyebrows.

She slid an arm under his jacket, pinched his side, and kicked his heel.

He jumped, looked down at her, and noted the look of subtle threat her face bore. She was telling him that if he didn't talk, she would, and he might not like what she had to say. He tried to push her arm away as he said, "Criminal cases. I'm with the NYPD, a detective."

"Somehow I'm not surprised. Catch many murderers?" Willis asked, taking note of the other man's attempt to push his date away and deciding he might not go home alone tonight after all.

Alex and Bobby exchanged a look. "A fair number," he finally said.

Willis nodded vaguely and looked back to Alex. "And what about you, Alexandra? What do you do?"

The man's interest in Alex was obvious, and Bobby found himself slipping an arm around her waist protectively rather than continuing to try to push her away. He decided to let her field this question, since they hadn't discussed whether she would lie about her job. His decision turned out to be a good one, because when he realized that his hand at her waist was touching bare skin and his fingertips were under the edge of her top, all thoughts deserted him.

"I work with Bobby, actually," she told the man, her pitch a little too high as she felt his hand spread across her back. "Your garden-variety civil servant."

"Oh, I doubt you're a 'garden-variety' anything," Willis said unctuously.

She gave him a fake smile. "You're sweet. But you know, you haven't told us what _you_ do!" She was amused to find that Bobby's fingers tightened on her when she called the other man _sweet, _and she looked up and gave him a knowing look before taking his hand in hers and pulling it around to her hip, then using her hand to hold his in place.

Willis watched their interaction with a slight frown. "Oh, I'm an accountant with J.P. Morgan."

He was obviously expecting them to be impressed by the name of the company, but she found him a little too slimy to be impressive. "That's interesting." She looked between the two men. "So, were you guys good friends in school?"

"Uh, not really," Bobby muttered.

"Aw, come on, that was just teenage fun!" Willis said with a wave of his hand. Looking back at Alex, he said, "He was an easy target, everyone picked on him a little."

She mentally downgraded Jimmy Willis from _slimy_ to _asshole_. "Really?" she said, watching Goren out of the corner of her eye. "You know, I've always found it interesting that Bobby will tolerate people picking away at him rather than hitting back like most men would do. I think it has something to do with how . . . big he is. Nothing to prove, you know?"

Bobby choked.

Willis blinked and looked from her to Goren. "Uh, interesting theory. But hey, Bobby, I'll take this opportunity to apologize to you."

Bobby coughed once more to relieve his choking and looked at the man. "Don't worry about it. Alex may be on to something, here." Looking down at her, he applied pressure to her hip and said, "Let's go get a drink while you tell me more about this theory of yours, honey."

"Sure, sweetie," she said with a grin. "Bye, Jimmy," she added, throwing a casual wave to the man over her her shoulder.

"You're going to get me in trouble tonight, aren't you?" he murmured as they approached the bar.

She grinned. "You asked me to come. And if all your classmates are like that guy, I'm going to have a fun time knocking them all down by the end of the night."

"The 'knocking them down' part is fine, but . . . how 'big' I am?" he said, raising his eyebrows.

"Hey, I wasn't lying. I just let him assume I was referring to something other than your height."

"No kidding," he said with a shake of his head. "What do you want to drink, since I'm buying?"

"Champagne, if they have it," she replied, leaning back against the bar. "Trust me on this, Bobby. I just started one rumor that definitely isn't going to hurt your reputation."

He ignored that and turned to ask the bartender for their drinks. "A scotch and a champagne, please."

"Coming right up," the man said, eyeing the expanse of bare skin the small blonde woman was presenting as she stood with her back to him. "She with you?" he asked the tall man, gesturing to her.

Bobby blinked, looking over at Alex. "Uh, yeah," he said, turning her around and pulling her between him and the bar so that her back was shielded.

"Bobby," she said in annoyance, looking over her shoulder at him. "I was more comfortable the way I was."

"The bartender was ogling you."

"I'd be surprised if he wasn't, considering my outfit," she said with a roll of her eyes. "I don't get many good opportunities to show off and get my ego fed."

He hadn't realized she was aware of the effect she had on men. "Ok," he said after taking a second to regroup, "but if you're supposed to be my girlfriend, then I'm expected to guard you jealously."

She accepted her champagne from the bartender and handed him a dollar she'd produced seemingly out of nowhere. "Thanks." Turning to face Bobby, she smirked up at him. "Somehow I can't see you doing the 'jealous boyfriend' thing. This is going to be a _very _interesting night . . ."


	3. Dan Hon

A/N: I'm getting into the realm of guesswork on Bobby's past...if I violate any canon, let me know

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They had just taken their drinks and turned away from the bar when a hand descended on Bobby's shoulder and its owner called, "Bobby!"

Not recognizing the voice, he turned to see who was talking to him.

Alex copied his movement and was shocked to see genuine pleasure cross Bobby's face when he spotted the owner of the hand, a short, stocky Asian man wearing thin-framed glasses.

"Dan!" Bobby exclaimed, quickly dropping Alex's hand and taking another step toward the other man. "I didn't know you would be here."

"Look who's talking!" Dan said with a grin. "You've never come to any of these things, what gives?"

Bobby shrugged. "I ran into Sue the other day and got curious about how everyone turned out."

Dan's eyebrows went up. "Sue's here? I haven't seen her yet, how's she doing?"

Alex watched this exchange with keen interest, pleased to have the rare opportunity to observe her partner in a relaxed, friendly conversation. The pair looked comical standing across from each other, but she reminded herself that if the height difference looked silly with them, it must be hilarious when it was her standing across from Goren.

The men continued to banter, Bobby seeming to have forgotten she was there, and she held back a smirk, trying to decide how to tease him about it later. In the meantime, she studied this man who was clearly a friend of Bobby's. He was short, perhaps five-foot-eight, and his body bore a strong resemblance to a rectangle resting on its short side. His black hair was brushed forward and spiked slightly in the front, and after a closer look she noticed that his glasses had designer frames. In fact, the man's entire outfit was on the expensive side from what she could see. Obviously he and Goren had spent too much time together during their formative years, she thought with a grin.

"Wait, who's this?" Dan asked Bobby, his voice breaking into her study of him. "I didn't realize you had someone with you." He gave Alex an apologetic nod and a smile. "Dan Hon," he said, holding out his hand.

She smiled back and shook his hand. "Alex Eames. Nice to meet you." Looking up at Goren, who was watching them impassively, she went on, "I take it you guys are friends?"

"Well," Goren said, "it's been a long time since we saw each other . . ."

". . . but we were part of the same social group when we were in school," Dan finished.

Alex raised her eyebrows, impressed that this man, like her, knew Goren well enough to finish his sentences. "What social group was that?" she asked.

"Chess," Bobby muttered, not looking at her.

A small laugh escaped her. "Chess players constituted a social group?"

"It did for us," Dan said. "Now, feed my curiosity. How are you connected to Bobby, here?"

She glanced up at Bobby, not sure if he wanted to maintain the ruse with someone he obviously trusted, but his face told her nothing.

After a few seconds of silence, Bobby said, "She's a . . . friend."

Dan rolled his eyes. "That doesn't tell me anything. Come on, man, I haven't seen you in years. For all I know she's your wife!"

"We're not married," they chorused, then stared at each other.

"Well, Bobby?" Alex said, giving him an innocent look. "What _am _I to you?"

Goren ground his teeth, unsure of what to say.

He was rescued by his friend's dry wit: "I'm going to guess she's your guilty pleasure."

"Uh . . ."

Alex shrugged. "That's as good a description as any. I'll throw you a bone and tell you that I'm here because he said I was the only woman he trusted enough to bring to a reunion." She was beginning to like Dan Hon and his sense of humor. "How 'bout you? You bring a date?" she went on.

Bobby's eyes flew to her face, trying to see if her flirtatious tone of voice was reflected in her expression, but all he saw was a pleasant smile. All the same, he allowed himself to take her hand and stroke his thumb over the back of it as she spoke to Dan.

Alex glanced up at him, surprised, then looked back at the other man. "Come on, where is she, Dan?"

Dan grinned and looked at Bobby. "I like this girl." Turning back to her, he added, "No, I don't have a date. Care to do double-duty tonight and be mine as well as his?"

"Dan," Bobby said quietly.

"Sorry, sorry. Couldn't help myself. Let's change the subject. What have you been up to?"

He shrugged. "Same as usual. Doing my job."

Alex sighed and asked Dan, "Has he always been like this?"

"Oh, believe me when I tell you this is a vast improvement from his teenage years, Alex - can I call you Alex?"

"Of course." She looked back up at Goren and teased, "Somehow I get the impression you said about five words, total, through all of high school."

He quirked an eyebrow. "Depends whether you count 'check' and 'checkmate'. And I'm sure you talked enough for both of us, even back then, Eames."

Dan looked at him curiously. "You call her by her last name?"

"Bad habit he picked up at work," she explained before he could. "I'm trying to break him of it."

"Ooh, Bobby, the woman's trying to 'break' you!" Dan said with a grin.

"Knock it off, Dan. What have _you _been doing lately? Still with IBM?" Noticing Alex's curious look, he added, "Dan was the resident computer genius. He wrote a chess-playing program on punch cards."

"Not that it worked, of course," Dan said with a self-effacing smile. "And no, I left IBM. I'm with a small start-up now, helping them develop data mining software."

"Developing software?" Alex asked. "Like, you're writing the program? I'm impressed!"

"It's not nearly as exciting as you're probably thinking," Dan said with a shake of his head. "Lots of staring at a screen and trying to figure out where you forgot to type a semicolon."

She grinned. "Sounds a lot like our paperwork, huh Bobby?"

"Wha?" he said, having been too busy analyzing her behavior to listen to the question.

"Never mind." She looked down at her glass. "I need a refill, and I think someone here promised to take care of my drinks tonight . . ."

Bobby groaned. "I'm going to have to be your cocktail waiter now too?"

"Hell yeah. You owe me, big guy."

With a dramatic sigh, he took her glass and headed for the bar.

"Quick," she said to Dan, "while he's gone, tell me about him!"

He grinned. "I was about to ask you the same question. I haven't seen him in close to twenty years."

She cocked her head to the side, collecting her memories. "Ok, the hyper-condensed version of what I know: he joined the army, lived on a base in Germany for a while, came home and joined NYPD, worked in Narcotics for a while, mostly undercover, then moved to the Major Case Squad, which is where he is now."

"Is that where you are too?"

"I beg your pardon?"

Dan shrugged. "You don't look like a regular bar pick-up to me. Which leaves work as the likely place he met you. Actually, I very much doubt he'd pick up girls in bars at all."

"Ah, that's where you're wrong," she said with a smirk. "That's how he gets most of his dates."

"Then how come you're here and not one of those women?"

She thought about that for a second. "I'm not really sure."

He smiled. "From what I've seen of you, it's either because you're gorgeous, you're brilliant, or you're the only one he can trust not to embarrass him."

"Probably the third one," she said.

"Hmm," he said, "maybe. But let me take this opportunity, before he comes back to stomp on me, to tell you that you do have a lovely back. And, for that matter, a lovely front."

She gave his shoulder a playful push. "You're smooth, I'll give you that. Don't let him hear you say that, though. He got annoyed because the bartender was checking me out."

"He's protective of his friends. Always has been. I distinctly recall him pulling bullies off me at least twice when we were in school."

"We just ran into a guy named Jimmy Willis," she said. "I got the impression they didn't get along. Was he one of the bullies?"

"Ugh, Jimmy was a bastard. Probably still is, although I haven't seen him since graduation. Hey, have you met Sue?"

"Susan Alexander?" she asked. "Yeah, she met us at the door and dragged us in." She paused. "Bobby wasn't sure what to introduce her as, I think. Did they date?"

"They went out a few times. I don't think it was serious. She was one of the only girls in our group, so she kind of played our collective girlfriend."

"_That _snooty looking blonde," she asked incredulously, pointing to where Susan stood across the room, "was a chess nerd?"

He followed her eyes and laughed. "Believe it or not, she was a tomboy back then."

"What!"

"What are you guys laughing about?" Bobby asked, coming up behind her to hand her her drink.

Alex grinned. "Dan was just telling me about you dating Susan Alexander."

Bobby scowled at his friend and placed himself behind Alex, wrapping one arm around her waist. "Why were you telling her about that?"

Dan shrugged. "Just making conversation." He considered the possessive way Bobby was touching the woman and wished he'd had more time to get her to describe what their relationship really was.

Alex looked pointedly down at his hand, then up at Bobby's face, smirking. "I didn't know you went for tomboys, Bobby."

"I don't. I don't . . . 'go for' types."

"That, my friend," Dan said, "must really make it hard to get laid." Without giving Bobby time to think of a response, he took Alex's hand and kissed it jokingly. "I'm going to go find Sue. You guys have fun, ok?"

Alex grinned, suspecting that above her head, her partner wasn't. "See you later, Dan. Nice meeting you."

"Nice guy," she said when he was gone, looking back at Bobby. "You never told me you were in the chess club."

"You never asked." He tightened his arm slightly around her. "Come on, I need another drink."

She allowed him to lead her toward the bar, but said, "How come you didn't get another when you got mine?"

"I was distracted," he said shortly as he slid his glass toward the bartender and nodded for a refill.

The bartender nodded, his eyes on Alex. "Hiya, sweetheart."

She gave him an amused look. "Hi, yourself."

He slid Bobby's drink over to him, then looked back at her and asked, "You want another? No charge."

"Well, I'm good for now," she said, holding up her nearly-full glass, "but I just might take you up on that later."

"Just let me know," he said with a wink.

"Alex," Bobby said a little tightly. "Let's go."

She gave the bartender one last smile, then returned her gaze to her partner. "Who else do I get to meet tonight?"


	4. Janet and Oliver

Half an hour later, Alex was attempting to work her way back to her companion from the bathroom without stepping on or elbowing anyone in the mass of people that filled the room. She had a slight advantage in that Bobby's head was usually visible above the crowd, and once she caught sight of it, she was able to set a definite trajectory.

She was mildly surprised to find when she reached him that he wasn't standing alone, ashe'd been when sheleft him. A tall, brown-haired woman was draped over his arm and laughing up into his face.

Alex stopped in her tracks a few feet from them, assessing the situation. She didn't remember having been introduced to the woman at any point tonight, but it was obvious Goren knew her. It was equally obvious that he wasn't sure what to do with her, judging by the way he was leaning his upper body subtly away from her.

Alex took a step closer and tried to eavesdrop on their conversation:

"Oh my _god_, you're a detective? That's so interesting! Do you get to carry a gun?"

"Uh, yes. We're all issued one."

"I bet yours is big, to go with the rest of you," the woman purred, running a hand down his arm.

Bobby swallowed convulsively, but Alex couldn't tell if it was from attraction or disgust. "Everyone gets the same weapon. It had nothing to do with size. Uh, Jan . . ."

"Ooh, so you _do _remember me! I was starting to get worried!"

"You're, uh, hard to forget."

Alex rolled her eyes. _Bad move, Bobby._

"That's so nice of you to say! You remember little old me! So, tell me more about you. Have you ever been _shot_?"

His already-strained expression took on an added degree of tension, and she decided it was time to rescue him. "Bobby, sweetheart!" she called a little too loudly, striding up to him. "I thought I lost you in this crowd," she added, putting an arm around his neck and pulling him down to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Oh, who's this?" she asked innocently, sliding her arms around him to dislodge the other woman's and pretending to just notice that they weren't alone.

The brunette's eyes narrowed as she studied Alex, taking in the tiny figure, pixie-like face, and obvious emotional connection to Bobby Goren. "Janet Stapleton," she said coolly, holding out a manicured hand.

"Janet used to date Jimmy Willis," Bobby explained, looking down at Alex gratefully as the two women shook hands.

"Oh, now Bobby," the woman said, touching his arm possessively, "that was so long ago, it hardly counts. You know I forgot all about Jimmy when I started dating you."

Alex's eyebrows shot up. Bobby, her shy, detail-oriented Bobby, had dated this . . . Botoxed Amazon thing? She gave Janet an exaggeratedly curious look. "That's odd. You know, he's never mentioned you in . . . how long have we been together now, honey?"

Bobby, who had been watching Alex, fascinated by her act, cleared his throat. "Uh, five years, give or take."

"Right, right," she said. "What did you say your name was?" she asked, looking back to the woman, whose face had taken on a decidedly less pleasant look.

"Janet. Who are you?"

Alex gave Bobby a reproachful look. "Bobby, you didn't tell her?"

"Uh . . ."

"Call me Alex. I'm Bobby's fiance. Oh, and don't mind the hand," she said, glancing down at her bare left ring finger. "The ring's being custom-made in Italy, we're still waiting for delivery."

He'd known she was a good actress, but he was finding himself more impressed with each second that passed tonight. "She doesn't need to know that, honey," he said, looking down at Alex and trying not to show his amusement.

"Oh, you're just too modest," she said, grinning at him. Unable to resist some mild torture, she added, "How come you didn't tell me we'd be meeting your ex-girlfriend tonight?"

Janet jumped into the opening Alex had purposely left her. "Oh, he never told you? He was quite the ladies man! In fact," she added slyly, "I bet he still is."

"Ladies man, huh?" she said, looking up at him with a smirk. "Does that mean there are more old girlfriends here for me to meet?"

He gave her a dark look. "No."

"You're so lying," she teased.

"Drop it, Alex."

Her lips twitched as she tried to hold back a laugh. "No way. Tell me."

He gritted his teeth and looked over at Janet, who was watching them avidly. "Excuse us," he muttered as he grabbed Alex's arm and towed her away from the other woman. "What are you doing?"

"You're so easy to aggravate, Bobby. Give me a challenge every now and then!"

"You-"

"And while I've got you alone, how could you possibly date someone like that?" she asked incredulously.

"She didn't used to be quite so . . . frightening." At Alex's disbelieving look, he sighed and said, "All right, and she had big boobs and I had hormones."

She let out a shout of laughter and clutched at his arm, leaning into him as she continued to giggle. "I should have known. Teenaged boys are all the same."

"Can we set aside the subject of my ex-girlfriends now?"

"Not quite yet," she said, giving him a pat on the arm. "We can't leave poor Janet standing alone. And I want to hear more about how you used to be a ladies man. Come on," she told him, pulling him back toward the brunette. "You slept with her, she can't be all bad."

He stared at her back as she towed him along. "I . . . you think . . . what?"

"_There _you are, Bobby!" Janet interrupted. "I thought she'd stolen you away from me."

Alex grinned. "Never! We're here so he can catch up with all his high school friends, I wouldn't deprive him of your company."

He looked down at her and said tightly, "Alex."

"Oh, you two chat. I need to get a refill of my champagne," she said lightly. "The bartender did offer me that free drink," she added deliberately, curious about what Bobby's reaction would be.

"He was hitting on you," he said with a frown. "If you accept the drink he'll think you're accepting him."

"I can handle one little bartender, honey." With that, she turned and began to fight her way through the sea of people toward the bar.

"Hey, pretty girl!" the bartender exclaimed when he saw her. "You're back!"

"Couldn't turn down the offer of a free drink," she said with a smile, putting her empty glass on the bar.

"For you," he said, uncorking a new bottle of champagne, "a glass of my finest. So, you an alumna?"

"No, just the date of one. An alumnus, that is, not an alumna," she added, figuring that if the guy knew enough to use the feminine form when addressing her, he probably knew the difference.

The man grinned widely. "And she's smart, to boot! What's your name, hon?"

Alex glanced over her shoulder at where she'd left Bobby, noticing that he appeared to be deep in conversation with Janet Stapleton. He'd be ok without her for a while. "Alex," she said, turning back to the bartender. "What's yours?"

"Oliver, but call me Oli." He took her hand and gave it a quick shake. "I was the misfit of the class," he added, "but I was always useful as a bartender, so they invited me anyway."

"You don't strike me as the misfit type, Oli," she said, sipping at her drink. In fact, she would have put her money on him being part of the "popular" crowd, considering his classically handsome face.

He looked away for a second, saying, "Let's just say I've changed a lot since then."

His abashed reaction reminded her of Bobby, and she giggled.

"What's so funny?" he asked, a hint of uneasiness in his voice.

"Sorry, I'm not laughing at you. You just reminded me of my . . . uh, date for a second."

"Yeah? Who's your date? I might know him."

She wasn't sure that she wanted to know if the two men had known each other, but dodging the question would be too obvious. "Bobby Goren."

"He was the tall guy that was with you before?"

She nodded.

"No shit! I _thought _he looked familiar," he said, slapping a hand against the bar. "He used to be a lot skinnier. Uh, I don't mean that as an insult," he said quickly, looking at her face.

"It's ok, I know what you mean. You knew him, really?"

"Sure! The misfits all knew each other, although he and I weren't particularly close friends. So you're . . . what? His wife, girlfriend?"

She shrugged. "Girlfriend, I guess."

"You 'guess'? You're not sure?"

"It's complicated." _And that's the understatement of the year_, she added in her head.

"Ah, complicated," he echoed. "I've heard that one before. Mind if I ask why you're over here instead of with him?"

The guy had a knack for getting to the heart of the matter, she thought. "I just needed a change of pace. It's overwhelming to be constantly meeting new people and having to keep a smile plastered on my face."

"Uh-huh," he said, obviously waiting for her to go on.

She sighed. "And he's busy with an ex-girlfriend."

"Who?"

"Uh, Janet somebody . . . Stapleton?"

Oli grimaced. "Boy, I remember her."

"Hey," she said as an idea hit her, "what do you remember about Bobby? Alone or with the girlfriend, whichever."

He pursed his lips, looking thoughtful. "I think I'll join you in a drink before I go into that one," he said after a second, pouring himself a glass of what looked like whiskey. After taking a sip, he let out a satisfied breath. "So, what do you want to know?"

"Hmmm . . . what did he act like? I know he was in the, uh, chess club, but other than that he's never really told me anything about his younger self."

"What did he act like . . ." Oli repeated slowly. "He was quiet. Very quiet. Never fought with anyone that I saw, although he had to defend himself a few times. You know, the typical gentle giant. A lot of people just thought he was weird, because sometimes it looked like he was talking to himself, but me, I figured if that was his version of insanity, it didn't look too bad. Oh, and he spent a lot of time in the library, too." He took another sip of his drink. "Has he changed much?"

"Going by what you just said, he's hardly changed at all. He's not as shy now, I think mainly because he can't be shy and still do his job."

"Oh? What's his job?"

"He's a detective. NYPD."

"I'm impressed," Oli said with a small smile. "Always knew his brain would get him somewhere. Of course, it was his brain that got him in trouble, too."

"It was?" she asked curiously. "How so?"

Oli sighed. "I probably shouldn't tell you this, because I don't know for a fact that it's true, but . . . the thing with Janet Stapleton. I heard she told people she had two main reasons for dating him: he had big feet, and he was willing to do her homework for her."

Alex winced. "Ouch. Did he know that?"

"Nah. Everyone who knew . . . either they didn't care or they didn't want to upset him. I was in the second group. Think about how quickly it would deflate a guy's ego to hear that he was being used for homework, of all things," he said with a shudder.

"How'd they break up? Did he figure out her motives?"

He looked down into his whiskey for a second. "Not exactly."

"Then what happened?"

He sighed. "He, uh . . . caught her cheating on him. Apparently that's something he doesn't give a second chance for."

"Well, I can see why!"

"You won't hear any argument from me. I never liked her to begin with."

"She strikes me as, uh, very fake, to put it gently. But if that's what happened between them, then how come he's talking to her tonight like nothing ever happened?"

"That, I can't explain, except to say that I saw him become wary of a lot of people, but I never saw him hold a grudge."

She thought about that. Oli had a point; Bobby didn't really even hold a grudge against Nicole Wallace, let alone anyone else. "Sometimes I think he -"

She cut off abruptly when an arm slid around her waist from behind and she felt long fingers brush the skin of her abdomen. "You left me alone with her," Bobby whispered accusingly in her ear, pulling her backward on the stool until her back was pressed against him.

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A/N: A minor cliffhanger, I guess. I'll try to crank out the next chapter quickly.


	5. Annie Lombardi

Alex froze against him, wondering how much of their conversation he'd overheard. "Uh . . . hi," she finally managed, turning only her head, since he was holding her body still.

Bobby's eyes flicked to the bartender, who was still standing in front of Alex with a smile on his face. "Get lost, she's taken," he growled when the man ignored his glare.

To his dismay, rather than retreat, the man burst out laughing, followed a second later by Alex, who pulled out of his arms so she could lay her head on the bar as she laughed.

"I guess he doesn't recognize me, either," Oli choked out to Alex, who giggled in response.

"Why would I recognize you?" Bobby said, irritated at the guy for not being suitably intimidated.

"Bobby . . ." Alex started, but Oli waved her off.

"Picture me with long hair and thick glasses," he suggested.

Bobby squinted at the man and then blinked. "Oli? Oliver Matthews?"

"Yup."

He blinked again, trying to associate the scraggly teenager he'd known with the well-dressed and groomed man in front of him. "What did you _do_?"

Oli grinned at Alex. "Told you I changed a lot. Bobby," he said, looking back at the other man, "you'd be surprised what a difference contact lenses and a good barber can make."

"Guess so." Remembering that he had come to rescue his date from the amorous barkeep, he put an arm over Alex's shoulders and asked, "So, what were you guys talking about for a whole, uh, half-hour?"

She quickly looked back down at the bar, saying nothing.

Oli, however, had no compunctions about spilling the beans. "You," he told Bobby.

"You were talking about me?" Bobby repeated. "Alex?" he prompted, bending over to see her face.

"You can't expect me to come to your high school reunion and not be curious, Bobby," she muttered.

He straightened up and sighed. "You could have picked a better time to pick someone's brain than when I was trapped with Janet Stapleton."

Oli smirked. "Yeah, I was telling Alex about her too. We reached the conclusion that we weren't fans."

"Although I get the distinct impression that you are," Alex couldn't help adding.

"I'm what? A fan of Janet?" He shook his head. "Not quite."

"Looked like you were getting cozy with her over there. I thought I'd give you some privacy."

Bobby leaned over again, looking hard at her. "Do I detect a note of jealousy in your words?"

She sat up and scowled at him. "No, you do not."

Oli ducked behind the bar to refill her glass. "Want a drink, Bobby? No charge."

"Uh, sure. Scotch," he said absentmindedly, keeping his eyes on Alex. "Well? Jealousy?"

"You're not funny," she told him.

"I don't know about him," Oli said, putting their drinks in front of them, "but I'm sure getting a kick out of it."

"Argh!" she growled, slipping off the stool and standing up. "God save me from middle-aged chess nerds."

Bobby picked up their drinks and handed Alex hers, then looked up at Oli. "Thanks," he muttered, replacing his arm around her waist. "Now if you'll excuse us, I need a moment of privacy with my . . . uh . . ." He stopped, shook his head. "My . . . whatever she is."

"Oh, that was smooth," she murmured to him as he pulled her toward a less-crowded alcove. "Your 'whatever she is'?"

"Well, I didn't know what story you'd given him."

She sighed and leaned back against the wall. "Right. Now, go ahead and start the lecture, since you have my attention."

He cocked his head to the side. "I'm not going to lecture you. What topic were you expecting a lecture on?"

"How about 'How to not allow men to notice me'? Or possibly just a lecture on how you know x, y, and z about Oli and thus I shouldn't get near him."

"Uh, no. Actually, I wasn't going to say anything about you or Oli. I was just going to ask you to please not leave me alone with any more women tonight," he said, moving to stand in front of her so he could see her eyes.

She raised her eyebrows. "What, you don't like having girls climb all over you? That's a new one."

"Just . . . don't. I don't like having to fend them off."

"So you want me to do it for you?"

He shrugged. "You're a lot more effective."

"Oh, fine. If only so I can torment you with other things."

"Like deserting me and going to pick up the bartender?"

She grinned. "I was just getting a drink, but Oli's got good lines."

He looked down at her suspiciously. "Lines?"

"You know, pick-up lines?"

"He tried to pick you up?"

He didn't sound like he liked that idea, so she decided to downplay her interactions with the other man. The last thing she needed was to start a war. "I guess you could say he tried."

"How?"

"Why are you so interested?" she shot back.

He paused for a split second before answering, "You're supposed to be playing my girlfriend, Alex. You can't let other men try to pick you up."

"Well, I have to keep myself amused somehow, don't I?"

"What, I'm not amusing enough for you?" he said, feeling a little hurt.

She sighed. "You're fine, Bobby. It's just that I can only take so much of this . . . reunion conversation sort of thing," she said, waving her hand to indicate the packed room, "before I get the urge to scream."

"I'm sor-"

"No, no," she said, cutting off his apology. "I'm not complaining. I'm just saying I need the occasional break from all the smiling and nodding."

He leaned forward, putting one hand on the wall next to her head. "I've been ignoring you, haven't I," he said as he studied her face.

"It's fine, Bobby. It's your reunion, after all."

"I'll try to keep you with me and in the conversation, ok?"

She shrugged. "Don't worry about me. You should be busy enjoying yourself."

"No," he said firmly, removing his hand and moving back a step. "I'll do better. Come on," he said, taking her hand. "Let's go back out."

Holding back a groan, she followed.

They were hardly back in the room before he was recognized again. "Bobby? Bobby Goren?" A slightly-built woman stood in front of them, seeming to be studying him.

"Yes," he said slowly, trying to pin down her identity. "Annie?"

"Yes!" she said as a grin spread across her face. "I wasn't sure if it was you, you've changed so much since I saw you last . . ."

He studied her, taking in her simple cocktail dress and hairstyle. "I could say the same for you. I would never have expected to see you in a dress, for one thing!"

Alex shifted her weight beside him, trying to evaluate this Annie, the first woman they'd encountered tonight who hadn't either cooed or squealed his name in greeting. She also looked a lot less done-up than Susan and Janet had, and Alex decided that she might actually be able to like this woman.

She was so startled when Bobby tugged on her hand that it was only his quick reaction that kept her on her feet. "Whoa!" he said, catching her in a functional hug. "You ok?"

She took a deep breath. "Other than my bruised ego, yeah. Sorry about that."

"No problem," he told her as he steadied her. "I was going to introduce you to Annie," he said, gesturing to the other woman. "Annie was -"

"A friend," the woman finished quickly, leaving Alex to wonder what Bobby had been about to say. "My name's actually Annette, Annette Lombardi, but that's too much of a mouthful, so everyone just calls me Annie," she said with a friendly smile.

Alex noticed that the woman's eyes shifted to Alex's left hand and then back up to her face as she spoke. "Alexandra Eames," she said. "But 'Alex' works, too." She didn't bother with the girlfriend spiel; she'd decided that that was going to be up to him for the rest of the night.

Bobby looked down at her, slightly confused by her short introduction. "Alex is my, uh, girlfriend," he filled in when she just shrugged.

"Oh! Nice to meet you, Alex," Annie said, giving her an acknowledging nod. "Bobby, tell me everything that's been going on with you!"

"Uh . . ." He took a long moment to slip an arm around Alex, trying to think of something interesting that had happened since he last spoke to Annie ten years ago. "I got a promotion, so to speak."

"Oh yeah? To where?"

Alex's interest was suddenly piqued. Most people, when told about a promotion, would ask something like _So, what's your job now? _The fact that Annie had asked _where _Bobby was working suggested that she might be with the police or fire departments, or some other job where a promotion was often associated with a change in precinct or company.

Her inference was proved right when Bobby asked the woman, "Are you still with the NYFD?" He paused, then looked at Alex. "Annie's a paramedic. Or at least, was."

"Still am," Annie said with a smile. "And I still haven't found a way to get bloodstains off my clothes. But you didn't answer my question: where are you now?"

"Oh, uh, Major Case."

"Impressive," she said. "Congratulations."

Alex looked away and rolled her eyes. Bobby's connection to this woman was obviously very different from his connection with Janet Stapleton, and she wasn't sure if she liked it.

"Alex?" Bobby said, nudging her. "Annie asked what you do."

She blinked and returned her gaze to the other woman. "I, uh . . ." What did he want her to give as her job? Oh well, she decided after a second. His loss if he hadn't wanted her to tell the truth. "I'm in Major Case too."

Annie's eyes lit up and she gave Bobby a playful punch on the arm. "Hey, you finally wised up and found a girl who's not a bimbo!"

Bobby coughed self-consciously.

Alex couldn't help but laugh. Maybe this woman was all right after all. "Did he go for bimbos even back in high school?" she asked.

"Well, back then it wasn't so much that he went for them as that they went for him. He may be a little weird, but he's always been cute." She grinned. "It's only since high school that he developed the actual bimbo habit."

"Uh, Annie," Bobby muttered. "Would you please . . .?"

"Change the subject?" she said, as though she had predicted the request. "What would you rather talk about?"

Alex glanced up at Bobby, whose eyes were still on the other woman, and fought the urge to roll her eyes again. "Well if he doesn't have a topic on hand," she said after a second, "I'd like to hear more about what Bobby was like back then."

"Won't talk about himself, huh?"

"Not much," Alex acknowledged. "Although I've been getting bits and pieces tonight from his friends."

"Who've you met so far?"

"Susan Alexander, Dan Hon, Oli Matthews . . ."

Annie grinned. "The chess group," she said with a nod. "Yeah, they'd probably know the most about him besides me."

"Besides you?" Alex repeated.

"We, uh . . ." She stopped and looked at Bobby. "Do you mind me talking about this?"

He shrugged. "Alex is on a crusade tonight to figure me out. Fighting it would be useless at this point."

Annie gave Alex a smile. "The more he tells me about you, the more I like you. Well, anyway, I said I know Bobby better than the others because I've known him longer. We lived on the same block as kids."

Alex raised her eyebrows. "Do tell."

"There's not a real story to tell, but, well, we played together as kids, went through grammar school together, all that stuff."

"She knows my mom," Bobby interjected, knowing it would explain their relationship better to his partner.

Alex just looked at him for a second, then turned back to Annie. "You weren't in the chess club with the rest of them?"

Annie shook her head. "Spatial organization and long-term strategy are not among my talents. I did drama."

"From drama to emergency medicine," Alex said with a shake of her head. "Interesting."

Annie shrugged. "With medicine, you get to see actual results instead of just a bunch of heads in a dark theater."

"Trust me, the kind of drama where you do see results isn't much better."

"What?" Annie said, looking confused.

"I worked Vice," Alex said. "Take a guess about who got to play the lure just about every time."

"Ok, you definitely have a point there. You didn't mind wearing hooker clothes?"

"Well, it wasn't my idea of fun, but I could deal with it. I was never able to look at leather or miniskirts the same way after that, though."

Bobby moved behind her and rested his chin on the top of her head. "But as she's constantly reminding me, she looked good in them. Every now and then, we get her back into the clothes for an operation."

She tilted her head back, looking up at him. "Keep it up, and next time it's going to be _you _wearing the fur-trimmed mini skirt and tube top."

Annie grimaced. "I don't think they make those in his size."

"Drag queens have to get their clothes somewhere," Alex said with a shrug. "Of course, he might have to shave his legs."

"Not happening," Bobby said.

"Bull," Alex snorted. "You'd totally do it if we needed you to, and you'd somehow manage to look good in the clothes."

"Is that a compliment?" he asked cautiously, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"Your girlfriend thinks you'd make a hot woman," Annie said with an incredulous laugh. "Alex, I definitely like you."

Bobby accepted his fate good-naturedly. "My one condition is that I am _not _wearing high heels. Ever."

Alex looked up at him pointedly. "Like you'd need them?"

He grinned and leaned down to kiss her forehead. "You've got -"

He was interrupted by the ringing of a bell and a voice calling, "Dinner is now being served in Ballroom 2. Please make your way into that room and find your place cards."

"I think that's my cue to hunt down my husband," Annie said, giving them an apologetic look. "See you in there."

"Bye," Alex said. "I think I like her," she told Bobby.

"Good," he said, taking his arms from around Alex. "So do I." He offered her his arm. "Let's go find our seats."


	6. Alex strikes back

A/N: To everyone who's been marvelling at how I can update so fast, I thought I'd explain my very simple strategy: I haven't done more than an hour of homework a week since I started Spilled Blood. I have a psycholinguistics test tomorrow. I have yet to open the book, because every time I sit down to look at the study sheet, Rough Draft calls me with the siren song of my fics. I'm gonna fail, but at least I'll get nice reviews here...

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Ten minutes later, they were seated at a round table along with Annie and Susan, their respective husbands, Dan, Janet, Oli, and Jimmy. "Someone actually put thought into this seating arrangement," Alex remarked as she observed her dinner companions.

Susan smiled slightly. "That would be me. I figured everyone would be most interested in catching up with the people that were their friends back then. It didn't work out perfectly, but I kept most of the groups together." She studiously avoided looking at Janet or Jimmy as she spoke.

The man next to Susan, presumably her husband, stole a sideways glance at her. "You guys wouldn't believe how many hours she spent agonizing over who dated who and who bullied who. I thought she'd lost her mind the way she was muttering about 'John' this and 'Chess group' that. Oh," he added, seeming to just remember, "and I'm Dave." He added a little wave. "Hi."

A chorus of _hellos _answered him. "I guess maybe we should do introductions," Susan said after a moment. "I don't know if we all know each other. I am - was - Susan Alexander. Now it's Susan Hunt, and this guy," she said, jerking her thumb toward the man who'd just spoken, "is my husband, Dave Hunt. Uh, I did chess."

Dan, who was sitting on Dave's other side, raised his hand in a motionless wave. "Dan Hon. Chess."

"Oli Matthews, misfit extraordinaire," Oli said from his position to Dan's left.

Jimmy Willis looked around the table, his lip slightly curled. "Jimmy Willis. I was starting quarterback of the football team."

Alex blinked, trying to figure out how this short, portly man could have been an athlete at all, let alone one who got tackled regularly. After a moment's silence, she realized everyone was looking at her and Bobby expectantly. She elbowed him and he looked up. "Oh, sorry. Bobby Goren. Chess. This is my girlfriend, Alex Eames," he said, pointing to her.

She smiled brightly and, looking directly at Jimmy Willis, added, "I didn't go to this school, but for the record, I was prom queen at my high school." Her tone of voice made it clear that she wasn't just bragging; if Jimmy was going to talk about being a football player as though it made him better than everyone else, she could play that game too and show him that he wasn't as special as he seemed to think he was.

The reactions she observed in the next few seconds were amusing, to say the least. Bobby, who'd already known about her high school diversions, just smirked; Annie and Susan exchanged an amused look; Dan seemed to be looking at her with new, wider, eyes; Oli leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and grinned at her; and Janet sniffed haughtily. Jimmy Willis slid his chair a little closer to Alex and accidentally-on-purpose brushed his hand against her thigh. She tried not to show her disgust at the action.

Bobby watched Jimmy move and was considering saying something when Alex turned to look at him and lowered her eyebrows in a silent "don't." He thought for a second. She wasn't in physical danger, and that was the only type of danger she might not be able to handle by herself. If she wanted to deal with the groping ex-athlete, he'd stay out of it unless she needed him. Curious about how she planned on dealing with the guy, he just gave her a tiny nod and looked back up at everyone.

Annie looked up from whispering to her husband after a second. "Annie Lombardi. I was Annie Rialto back then. I was in, uh, drama. And this is Mike, my husband," she said, gesturing to the tall, dark-haired man sitting next to her.

There was something odd about Annie's husband, Alex reflected. In fact, she realized after looking at him for a few more seconds, Mike Lombardi bore a remarkable resemblance to Bobby. She wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but she filed it away in her brain, next to the memory of Annie cutting off Bobby's introduction earlier in the night.

Janet Stapleton, totally oblivious to the contemplations of her table-mates, gave them a wide, toothy smile. "Janet Stapleton. I was a cheerleader. And," she added, glancing at Alex, "I was also prom queen."

Alex barely restrained a snort. She was beginning to think Janet Stapleton and Jimmy Willis were perfect for each other - a match made in, well, hell.

"Well!" Susan said with forced pleasantness. "Now that we all know each other - oh, here comes the first course!"

Bobby leaned over to whisper to Alex. "Oh, I checked off, uh, 'chicken' for your main course when they sent the form. Is that ok?"

"Chicken's fine," she said with a nod, then leaned back so a white-coated waiter could place a salad bowl in front of her.

There were various idle comments around the table about the attractiveness of the lettuce and the freshness of the cheese as everyone began to dig into their salads. ""Sue," Annie said, looking up when she had finished about half of hers, "this is really good. Were you in charge of the food, too?"

"No, that was Emily Andrews - she's good, isn't she?"

Janet sniffed haughtily. "Emily - that mousy girl with frizzy hair and big glasses? Forgive me if I find it hard to believe that she organized this," she said, gesturing toward the elegantly-set table.

"That's her," Susan said, unfazed by the woman's insults. Janet would be eating her words soon enough, when she saw what Emily had grown up to be. "Bobby, didn't she do chess with us freshman year?"

He put down his fork and nodded. "I think so. I remember there being a minor revolt when we found out we were going to be down to only one girl after that year."

Janet looked up and met Alex's eyes, mouthing, "Womanizer."

Alex gave her a polite smile and stabbed an olive with her fork. "I would have thought you'd kind of expect a shortage of girls in something like the chess club."

"Just because it was expected," Dan said, "didn't mean we couldn't dream. After all, we had at least one, so why not others?"

Susan smirked. "They were using me as a recruitment tool by senior year."

Annie frowned. "A recruitment tool? As in, 'join our club and you get to see a real, live girl'?"

"Or worse yet," Alex interjected, "the 'hostess' clubs that rich schools have, where it's nothing but pros-"

"Nothing like that," Bobby interrupted her hastily. "She means that we put her out front at activity fairs. It was a good marketing strategy."

"Since when are you an econom-" Annie began with raised eyebrows.

"No, no no!" Alex waved a hand to cut her off. "Don't give him a question like that. He'll start listing all the economics textbooks he read for fun last year, and I, for one, don't want to fall asleep in my salad."

The sheepish look Bobby gave her as he acknowledged that she was right sent the table into gales of laughter.

"You mean he's gotten worse?" Susan managed to say between giggles.

Alex turned her head, studying his face for a second. "I wouldn't say 'worse.' The Encyclopedia Goren has come in handy pretty often in our line of work."

"_Your _line of work?" Jimmy repeated from next to her. "As in, your collective line of work? But you said you were a . . ." He stopped, trying to remember what it was she had said before he'd mentally cast her as a police department secretary.

Bobby cleared his throat. "I believe she said she was a, uh, civil servant. Which she is, as am I. We're paid from your taxes."

"You're a _cop_?" Jimmy said to her, as though he'd never heard of such a thing before. Then a second later, with a leer, "Does that mean you carry handcuffs, honey?"

Under the table, Alex clamped her hand down on Bobby's thigh, reminding him not to intervene.

Giving Jimmy a politely blank look, she replied, "Why yes, yes I do. And since you're an accountant, I guess you carry . . . a pocket protector?" As she'd hoped, her insinuation that he was a nerd froze the smile on his face. She just continued to smile pleasantly.

Jimmy stared at her for a moment, but couldn't penetrate her polite mask. He decided to assume it had been an innocent comment, because really, why would such a pretty little girl insult him like that? "No, no pocket protector," he finally said without heat. "Just, uh, checks for large amounts of money."

Trying not to move his arm too obviously, Bobby pried her hand off his leg.Then, rather than blow up at Willis as she feared he'd do, he just moved their hands to her thigh, giving it a gentle answering squeeze that let her know he was aware that she was up to something that would be amusing for everyone, except maybe Jimmy Willis.

"Ooh, large amounts of money!" Alex exclaimed, entertained by the broad spectrum of looks she was getting from the table's other occupants. "Tell me, Jimmy," she said, resting her chin in her free hand and staring up at him as if she were impressed, "is it _your _money?"

Bobby's hand squeezed her leg again, this time as he held back a laugh. He noticed that Annie and Oli were both pressing their lips closed as if to hold back similar laughs.

Jimmy Willis blinked. The woman just kept smiling, but somehow she kept turning things around on him. Well, not this time. He'd caught on to her game. "My money, along with others'," he said. Then, mimicking her phrasing, "Tell me, Alexandra, do you do most of your police work on the street, looking for . . . what do they call them? Johns?"

A collective gasp rose from everyone else at the table, with the exceptions of Alex, who had been hoping for him to pitch this question, and Annie, who figured Alex must have long ago had an answer prepared for questions like this. "I really don't think -" Susan began.

"It's fine, Susan," Alex said, waving away the woman's concern. Looking back at Jimmy, she gave him a disturbingly calm look. "I did a tour through Vice. They wanted me to stay there because I made such a good hooker. I looked perfect in a miniskirt and go-go boots - you should see the pictures - but you see, I have this problem: I'm smarter than I look. And they like to put smart people in jobs where we get to use our brains. That means off the street and on to an elite squad like Major Case."

Jimmy stared at her. "But-"

"Oh, and Jimmy?"

"What?" he said cautiously.

"We busted someone at your company last year for cooking the books. I'd watch my back if I were you."

The table exploded into laughter and chattering.

". . . hear that? She kicked his ass!"

"I wish I could think that fast on . . ."

". . . he had it coming . . ."

By the time a very confused waiter appeared a few seconds later with their dinners, Bobby had his arms around Alex, who was too busy laughing to worry about holding herself up in her chair; Dan was wiping tears of laughter from his eyes; Annie was bent over the table with her head in her hands as she giggled madly; and the rest of the table was laughing at the sight of everyone else laughing so hard.

Jimmy Willis, however, had had enough. "You'll have to excuse me," he said coldly, pushing back his chair and standing up, almost knocking over the waiter.

"Oh, come on!" Alex said, lifting her head out of Bobby's shoulder and looking up at the man. "That was just . . . how did you put it earlier tonight? 'Just a little teenage fun'?"

Willis's jaw clenched and he turned away, slamming open the door to the room and disappearing through it.

The table's attention turned back to Alex, whose face now bore a look of satisfaction. "What?" she said at their guarded looks. "That was exactly what he said an hour ago when he told me how he used Bobby as a target in high school."

"Delayed revenge?" Annie's husband said after a second, a slow smile spreading across his lips. "You had him dancing to your tune all along, didn't you?"He turned to his wife and mock-whined, "How come you don't verbally flay my enemies like that, honey?"

"Because I prefer to flay them physically, dear," Annie replied with perfect composure.


	7. Dinner partners

When the table's attention had shifted to the waiters who were serving their main courses, Alex took the opportunity to lean over and whisper in Bobby's ear, "Thank you."

He tensed as her lips brushed his skin, and tried to suppress the goosebumps her breath was threatening to give him. "For what?" he muttered, easing away from her slightly.

She matched his movement, both because she enjoyed unsettling him and because she didn't want the rest of the table hearing what she had to say. "For not doing anything."

He pulled away again, this time to give her an disbelieving look, and murmured, "Are you sure you're, uh, female?"

"Excuse me?"

He just shook his head with a small smile and settled himself back in his chair.

"Bobby!" she hissed through gritted teeth, turning her body to face him. "Explain."

He opened his mouth and took a breath, but whatever he was about to say was cut off by a call of "Hey, you two, get a room!" from the other side of the table.

Alex froze, then, fighting a blush, began to try to unobtrusively sit back down the way she had been a few minutes ago.

Bobby, on the other hand, snapped his head around and glared at his friends, trying to pick out the culprit. "Who said that?"

Six forks pointed at Oli, including the man's own. "You could at least wait until dessert to start the kissy-kissy stuff. That way the rest of us could hold down our dinner," he said in a curt voice that was belied by the amused look on his face.

"Well, it looks like Dan is your dinner partner," Annie broke in with a smirk. "Maybe if you buy him some chocolates or flowers, he'll let you . . ."

Dan blinked and, deciding to play along, turned to Oli. "You'll have to try harder than a box of chocolates to win me over, snookums. I don't come cheap," he said in a girlish voice, adding for good measure a snobbish sniff that resembled Janet Stapleton's from a few minutes ago.

"Speaking of cheap dates," Annie said, turning to Alex, "are there really pictures of you dressed up in your Vice clothes? I'd have collected them and burned them the second I transferred."

Alex's lips twitched as she fought a grin. "There really are, at least a few. The guys in Vice aren't what you'd call empathetic, and even though the pictures were Polaroids, we had a color copier, so . . ."

Bobby leaned into Annie. "You'd be surprised where those things have turned up," he told her conspiratorialy.

"What?" Alex squeaked, pulling him back to his own chair. "What are you . . . Bobby!" He'd never said anything to her about even knowing the incriminating photographs existed, and now he'd just announced to the table that he'd seen them?

"Don't worry, I confiscated whatever copies I came across."

"What, do guys trade them in the bathroom or something?"

"Something like that. You're a hot commodity among cops who . . . like to watch," he said, although he knew she was the only one who'd catch the joke.

"Uh, guys?" Oli said. "Do I need to repeat what I said about wanting to keep my dinner down?"

Alex gave Bobby a hard kick under the table and smiled sweetly at Oli. "Sorry. He doesn't get out much." Then, without any pause, she went on casually, "This chicken's good."

There was a beat of silence as everyone tried to catch up with her thoughts, then a series of murmured agreements were spoken as they all looked back down and started to work on their dinners.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Alex excused herself to go to the ladies room between the main course and dessert, and as soon as she was out of sight, the table's collective attention turned to Bobby, who contrived to look oblivious to the study.

"Out with it, you!" Annie finally said, elbowing him in the ribs. "Who is she, where did you find her, how'd you manage to actually keep her . . ."

"Uh . . ."

"And can I have her if you decide you don't want her?" Dan added with a grin.

"No!" He glowered at his friend, who was obviously enjoying goading him, then shrugged. "I've already told you guys the main points."

"Oh, come on," said Susan, waving her fork at him. "I don't know about anyone else, but all I know is her name and that she's your girlfriend. Oh, and that she says you're a 'commitment-phobe'."

"I don't think I believe that," Janet spoke up, garnering surprised looks from her tablemates, who had almost forgotten she was there. "I happen to think that Bobby wouldn't have any trouble committing to the _right _girl."

Oli coughed to fill the silence that followed that remark.

"Bobby," Annie urged after a few seconds, motioning for him to continue talking. "Come on, I like her; I want to know more about her."

He sighed and began attempting to do origami with his cloth napkin as he spoke: "Her name's Alexandra. She's my partner at work, has been for about five years. We work well together. Um . . ." He looked up again, searching his mind for other facts about her that could be shared in mixed company. "She's tough," he finally added, looking back down at his hands. "Much tougher than me . . . as you could probably tell from the way she handled Jimmy a little while ago."

" 'Protective' is the word I'd have used," Susan said with a small smile. "Which probably works out well, since you never bother to defend yourself."

"Ok, protective," Bobby allowed. "She's got all the political skills between the two of us. Most of the people skills, too."

"She's pretty," Oli said. "And I say that as a distant admirer, not someone who wants to get onto her dance card," he added quickly, noting the scowl that appeared on Bobby's face. "It's just interesting to see someone that . . . delicate-looking be a hardass. She does it well."

"She does," he agreed. "As for how I manage to keep her," he went on, looking back at Annie as he addressed her earlier question, "I'm still trying to figure that out."

"Maybe she really likes things about you _other _than your . . . personality," suggested Janet, loudly enough for everyone at the table to hear.

"Or _maybe_," Oli retorted before Bobby could respond to her remark, "Alex isn't as shallow as . . . _some_ women, and she's interested in things other than shoe size and homework."

Janet blanched as her insult of years ago came back to haunt her. "What else is there?" she said after a second, although this time she had the grace to say it under her breath.

"What else is there besides what?" Alex asked as she appeared behind Bobby's shoulder and slipped into her seat.

Silence.

A few awkward looks.

And then Janet gave her a sweet smile and said, "His . . . size, dear. Don't you agree that it rather overwhelms his other qualities?"

Alex hadn't realized she'd walked into a hostile environment when she returned, but the other woman's sniping made it amply clear that she had. She took a moment to compose herself, knowing that hurling a fork at Janet wouldn't help her win whatever argument this was, and then smiled back, just as sweetly. "Actually, I don't. Once you've been close to him for a long time, you kind of forget he's any bigger than anyone else, unless you need him to be."

"How's that?" Oli asked, genuinely puzzled. "I'd think, for someone as small as you, it would be hard not to notice."

"Hmm," she said pensively, trying to figure out how to explain it clearly, "well, there's a difference between being aware of something, and actually _noticing _something. Of course I'm 'aware' of the size difference, but I hardly ever 'notice' it - partly because he does everything he can to minimize it, at least at work."

"But what about outside of . . . work?" Janet shot back. "There are times when you, well, can't help but notice." She raised her eyebrows suggestively.

The insinuation was clear, and Alex didn't appreciate it, both because it was embarrassing for Bobby and because she didn't want to contemplate how Janet Stapleton knew about those "other times." She looked down at the table for a second, composing herself, then raised her head and gave Janet a half-smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Those times work fine for me. Maybe you just didn't know how to . . . handle him."

"Alex," Bobby said through gritted teeth as he tried to wish this entire conversation to hell.

"Sorry," she said, not looking the least bit contrite. "So, how did we get on the subject of how . . . tall you are, anyway?"

"I was, uh, telling them about how you're much tougher than I am," he semi-lied, relieved that she'd obeyed his implicit request.

Cocking her head to the side, she studied his face. It was obvious to her that he wasn't telling her the whole truth, but she'd get it out of him later tonight. For now, she'd humor him. "I don't know about that. I'd definitely say I'm more aggressive than you, but 'tougher'? Nah. You know very well I would never do some of the things you jump into. Like go vestless into a hotel room with a disturbed man holding a shotgun," she added, feeling the familiar sense of anger and dread that rose in her whenever she thought about that day.

"That sounds more like plain old stupidity, to me," Annie said as she tried to imagine the situation.

"That too," Alex said with a nod. "But you see my point."

"Yeah, I guess. But now that you put that scenario in my head, I think I might end up having nightmares about it."

"Join the club," Alex responded, being careful not to look at Bobby, who was unaware of the many bad dreams she'd had about that case.

Bobby leaned forward and stared hard at her. "You never told me you -"

He was cut off by the feedback of a microphone, followed by an amplified voice from the stage in the front of the room. "Test one . . . test one two . . ." said the woman who stepped up to the podium. At an unseen signal from someone to the side of the stage, she took another step forward and said, "Hello, B.F. High, class of 1979!"

There were a few scatted whistles and cheers, but most of the audience just watched the woman curiously.

"I'm Bonnie Green, co-chair of the Reunion Committee, and I'd like to welcome you all here tonight and thank you for participating. We had a great crew who helped organize this event. I'd like to introduce them to you now. Guys, if you'd each stand up when I say your name? First, we have my co-chair, Walt Guerrero," she said, then waited as a tall man with long black hair pulled into a ponytail stood up and gave the room a small wave.

"Next is Melissa Conway, who was in charge of the many hoops we had to jump through to book this place." A statuesque woman with white-blonde hair and piercingly blue eyes bobbed up, nodded to the crowd, and quickly returned to her chair.

"Then we have Susan Alexander-Hunt, who was in charge of creating and maintaining the guest list and invitations." The occupants of the chess table clapped enthusiastically as Susan, her face tinged with red, stood up and smiled, then sank back down next to her husband.

"And finally, we have Emily Andrews-Vincent. She's the woman you can thank for the fantastic decorations, food, and drink we're enjoying tonight."

Remembering Janet Stapleton's earlier barb, Alex watched intently, wondering what the woman would look like, as a sleek dark-haired head began to rise slowly above the crowd. When Emily's face became visible, gasps could be heard around the room. She studied the woman's high cheek bones, mass of shiny red-brown hair, and aristocratic bearing, and let out her own gasp when recognition hit her.

Leaning over to Bobby, she whispered, "Isn't that . . ."

He nodded. "_Congresswoman_ Emily Vincent. I can't believe I never noticed the resemblance before."

"I can't believe you didn't either, Sherlock," she teased before turning to check out the reactions of the rest of the table.

Dan and Oli, unsurprisingly, appeared fixated on the woman's beautiful face. As Alex watched them, Oli made a show of pushing his jaw shut and she rolled her eyes at him. Susan and her husband were smirking as they watched everyone else find out what they'd already known. Annie was staring wide-eyed at the woman, amazed by the change in her appearance since high school, when Emily Andrews had been a chess nerd with a poof of dried-out curls and glasses two sizes too big for her face.

Janet Stapleton, as usual, was displaying a totally different expression from everyone else: a cross between dismay and anger. Alex could easily read the thoughts written all over her face: _Why didn't anyone tell me about this? Susan Hunt just sat there and smiled when I mentioned Emily's high school looks, damn her! _

The applause began to die down as Emily Vincent returned to her chair. After Bonnie Green had thanked everyone again and sat down, dessert was served. Susan paused and looked up just as she picked up her fork to sample the cake. "Oh, Janet, tell me . . . do you still find it so 'hard to believe' that Emily helped organize this?"


	8. A tangled web

Janet raised one over-plucked eyebrow and gave Susan a pointedly sympathetic look. "Oh, I'm sorry, dear. I think you must have misheard me when I made that comment."

"No, I'm pretty sure I didn't," Susan replied with perfect aplomb. "But let's just say that perhaps you mis-spoke, and leave it at that, shall we?" She returned her concentration to her cake and began to eat.

Janet, who had eschewed the waiter's offer of cake, took a moment to reload her guns and then turned toward Alex. "What did you say your name was? Alex? Hmm, that sounds rather mannish, but I guess in your life of work . . ." she broke off, having gotten her point across.

"You can call her Alexandra if it really bothers you that much, Janet," Bobby said politely. Alex just gave the woman the ditzy smile she usually saved for chauvinistic suspects.

"Thank you, Bobby. Now," Janet said, deliberately injecting a note of false excitement into her voice and continuing to look at him rather than Alex, "tell us all about your engagement! I'd just _love _to hear the story of who proposed to who."

Around the table, eyes widened and then fell on the couple under Janet's fire.

The two detectives froze and looked at each other. They had forgotten that Alex had gone overboard on Janet and presented herself as Bobby's fiance, and now it was coming back to haunt them. After a second, Alex moved her head slightly to the left, a signal that only he would pick up: their signal that said _Go on and make up a story, I'll follow your lead, _a signal that they often fell back on while undercover.

Bobby smiled slightly and looked back at the table. Under the table, he pulled Alex's hand, palm up, onto his knee and began tracing random letters and shapes on her skin; above the table, he gave her his best attempt at a besotted smile and said, "It was . . . it was the, uh, end of the hundredth case we solved together and we had pulled an all-nighter to close it. We, uh . . ." He stopped and tried desperately to think of how he would propose to his partner if he were ever to actually do it.

"We went to my place for a celebratory breakfast, didn't we?" Alex supplied as he faltered.

"Yes, right! We went to Alex's apartment and I told her I would cook." _Good, Bobby. Stick with the truth as much as possible, and keep the rest simple. "_Uh, pancakes. That's what it waspancakes. She likes, uh, whipped cream on hers . . ."

"_Lots _of whipped cream," she agreed, wondering where the hell he was going with this story and how he was going to spin a tale to explain the lack of a ring.

"I swore off cream products when I turned thirty," Janet broke in. "They're just horrible for the . . . middle-aged figure, don't you think, Alex?"

"I eat 'em all the time, and I haven't put on a pound," Alex said brightly. It wasn't entirely true - who has a baby without putting on at least a few pounds? - but it seemed to shut Janet up quite effectively.

Bobby waited a second longer to see if Janet had any other remarks, then went on with his story: "So I made the pancakes and, uh . . . wait, I have to back up. I forgot the ring. That's important."

"Damn right it is!" Susan said. "The women need details."

He blinked. "Right. Well uh, see, when I was in the Army I spent some time in Italy, and I happened to make friends with a retired master jeweler there. So when I, uh, decided to do it - this, with her - I asked him if he'd come out of retirement just that once."

Alex, with half her mind on his finger stroking her palm and the other half on his story, wondered how much of that was true. Given his predilection for languages, she was inclined to believe at least the part about him being in Italy, and meeting a jeweler wouldn't be that farfetched given the circles he probably socialized in. She made a mental note to ask him later.

"So he and I worked out the, uh, design of the thing and he started working on it. But it, uh, he wasn't ready by the time I needed it, so I, uh . . ." He glanced at Alex, thinking fast. "I hijacked one of the rings we use when we go undercover as a couple and decided to use it as a stand-in." He paused. "I washed it really well before putting it in her food."

Alex would have spit her mouthful water across the table if she hadn't been lucky enough to have just swallowed it when he made that statement. As it was, she shut her eyes and made a sound somewhere between a choke and a laugh. Bobby took his hand out from under the table to pat her on the back. "Sorry," she choked. "Just the way you said that . . ."

He kissed her temple casually, as if he did it every day. "Glad to brighten your day. So," he said, turning back to the group that was watching them and returning his hand to Alex's under the table, "I, uh, put the stand-in ring on top of her pancakes and then covered it with whipped cream."

"He's lucky I have a tendency to let the whipped cream melt before I eat it, or I might have swallowed the damn thing," Alex added. _Apparently I also have a tendency to melt, myself, when kissed by my partner..._

He flushed slightly. "Well you know I, uh, don't have a lot of practice at this."

"That's not what _I've _heard," Janet murmured. All nine of the table's other occupants studiously ignored her.

Alex couldn't help it; she reached up and ruffled his hair. "You're blushing, Bobby."

He gave her a dirty look, pulled her hand off his head, and held on to it. "Why don't you tell them the rest of it?" he told her, a hint of smugness in his smile. "I'm sure you can describe your reaction better than I can."

She gave him a glare that told him he was serious danger of losing a body part or two, but managed to plaster on a smile for their audience. "I thought he had dropped something into the pancake batter by accident," she began slowly, starting to pick up steam as she went. "So I pulled it out of my whipped cream and wiped it off and saw it was one of our work rings. I believe my exact words to him were 'What the hell's this doing here?' And he did that kind of head-down-kicking-at-the-dirt thing he does when he doesn't want to answer a question . . ."

She had to pause when Annie and Dan looked at each other and started laughing. "What?" she asked, giving them a curious look when they started to calm down.

Annie shook her head. "It's just . . . we know that look, but we could never describe it, and you just did. Perfectly."

"Oh." She glanced at Bobby, who was, in fact, doing a fair imitation of that look at the moment, except without the dirt-kicking. "Guess it's true that men never change," she said with a grin. "Anyway, so he did the avoidance thing and turned red and I thought about it for a second and figured out for myself what it was doing there."

He sighed loudly. "And then she looked over at me, stood up, held the ring up in front of my nose, and said, 'Are you trying to propose to me with a used bronze ring that doesn't even belong to you?'"

It was Alex's turn to blush; that was probably very close to what she would have done in such a scenario.

Bobby, noticing this, squeezed her hand and smiled. "Like you said earlier, Oli," he said, looking up at his friend, "she's a hardass, but a pretty one. But so I, uh, I think I . . . I stammered something about Vincenzo and the ring still being made and she just stared at me."

"Then he just turned around and left the room," Alex said, "leaving me standing there wondering whether I'd just crushed all his hopes and dreams." He'd called her pretty? Or had Oli called her pretty? She needed to run this lead down later.

Bobby glanced at her, easily guessing what she was setting up, and picked up the description where she left off: "But I'd actually gone to get the sketch of the ring and when I got back to the kitchen she was sitting back at the table stabbing at her pancakes . . ."

"Searching them for any other debris," she corrected him primly.

". . . ok, 'searching for debris' in her pancakes, and I put the sketch down in front of her. She promptly, uh, dropped her fork on it. Her _sticky _fork."

"Well, you caught me by surprise!"

"That was the point of the whole thing," he reminded her. "But after the fork was disposed of, and I convinced her that she wasn't going to have to wear the ugly thing from work for the rest of her life, she . . . she, uh . . ."

"Said yes," Alex supplied.

He nodded. "Right."

There was loud silence at their table for a moment, and then Oli looked around at the group. "Did anyone else notice that they were finishing each other's sentences?"

"What's wrong with that?" Alex asked.

"There's nothing really wrong with it, Alex," Susan said with a grin. "It's just that most people don't know what he's saying even after he finishes the sentence."

Alex glanced over at him, noting that he had stopped his usual fidgeting and was staring at his hands. She looked back up at Susan and reminded herself that the woman had meant no harm, so it would do no good to snap at her. "Bobby's perfectly comprehensible," she said calmly. "It's just that you have to listen to him to understand him, and a lot of people don't bother."

Janet snorted.

Annie looked thoughtful.

Dan whispered something about "expensive chocolates" to Oli.

Bobby blinked and looked up at Alex, who gave him a tiny smile and squeezed his hand under the table. When he opened his hand, she allowed her fingers to slide between his and his hand to swallow hers.

As the dinner plates were cleared from around them, Bonnie Green took the microphone and reminded everyone that there would be dancing in the adjoining room, beginning in five minutes.


	9. Girl talk

There were mixed reactions at their table at the thought of dancing the night away. Bobby, as Alex expected, perked up significantly and turned to her with a pleading look on his face. "You want to?"

She looked around the table, trying to evaluate the odds of successfully begging off. Unfortunately, it seemed that chess players and misfits loved to dance, because every person, other than Annie, looked excited. Annie, on the other hand, seemed to be doing the same thing Alex was: trying to find a way out.

"Alex?" Bobby said next to her, giving their joined hands an encouraging wiggle. "Come on, will you go out there with me when they start the dancing?"

She looked over at Annie, hoping for support, but the other woman just shook her head, indicating to Alex that it was pointless to resist. Alex nodded slightly in response, and both women sighed, then turned to their respective partners and mumbled their assent.

It was almost worth the suffering, she thought as they stood up, to see such a wide smile appear on Bobby's face.

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The ballroom was decorated in a frighteningly accurate imitation of the disco era, complete with multiple disco balls hanging from the ceiling, cheesy movie posters on the walls, and a very bad imitation of the lighted floor from Saturday Night Fever. After staring at it for a few seconds, Alex decided it was probably a plastic roll-out mat that lit up. She wondered if the building code included regulations for that sort of thing.

"Alex," said a female voice behind her.

She turned to find Annie, looking furtive. "What's wrong?"

"Want to come to the bathroom with me?"

The universal signal for girl-talk. Hmm. She glanced up at Bobby and muttered an "excuse me," then followed Annie out into the hallway and toward the bathroom. "Is something wrong, or are we just reinforcing their concept of women having a herd mentality?"

"Nothing's 'wrong,' no. I just wanted to talk to you without all the guys present."

Walking past Annie toward a mirror above the sinks, Alex leaned forward and checked her reflection. "What about?"

"Bobby."

She dropped the pretence of checking her makeup and turned back to the other woman. "You were high school sweethearts," she said with a calm nod, as if she'd known this all along rather than figuring it out exactly thirteen seconds ago, as she actually had. And she tried not to look jealous.

"Kind of. I just didn't want you to think I . . ." She stopped and wrinkled her brows at Alex. "How did you know? I didn't think Bobby had told you."

She turned back to the mirror and stared at herself. _You can handle this, Alex. The woman's happily married, she's not competition anymore. Besides, have you forgotten that you're only pretending for the night that you have a claim on him? "_I'm a detective. Clues are what I do. When he introduced you to me, you cut him off before he could say more than your name, as if you had something you didn't want him to say. And then when I got a look at your husband . . ."

Annie sighed. "He hates when people notice the resemblance. Mike, I mean, not Bobby. I don't think Bobby's noticed, himself. Mike says it makes him feel like he's just a copy of someone from my past, instead of someone I love for who he is."

"Do you have a hairbrush, Annie?"

The other woman blinked at the non sequitur. "Uh, yeah," she said after a second, digging through her purse for the brush. "You're not upset about this?"

Alex considered how much she could share with this woman, who happened to be an old flame of Bobby's, but who also happened to be someone she genuinely liked. "Vaguely jealous," she finally said as she attempted to return her hair to its original french twist, "which I guess is kind of unavoidable. But it's hard to be truly freaked out about it when it's obvious that your eyes are on Mike, not Bobby."

"Wow, you're und-"

"Understanding? Usually. But that doesn't mean I won't start a cat fight if you get drunk and start hitting on my date," Alex added, only half-joking.

"If I start hitting on Bobby, you have my permission to either dump a glass of wine over my head or hit on my husband - as long as you keep five feet away from him at all times."

She couldn't hold back a laugh at that. "You know, if anyone asked me, I'd tell them that I'm absolutely not a clingy, possessive person . . ."

". . . except that every now and then you are, when it comes to the man you care about? Yeah, me too." Annie raised an eyebrow. "Can I ask you something?"

"Uh, sure, although I reserve the right to not answer if I don't want to."

"What are you and Bobby to each other, really?"

What was Annie fishing for? She thought everyone knew that they worked together. "We're partners . . ." she said slowly. "Why?"

"I don't mean at work. I mean in real life."

Alex could feel her face turning pink. "I'm his fiance. I don't understand what you're asking, Annie."

"Cut the crap. You're not engaged to him, although I have to say, that was a great story you guys spun at the table."

"Well I -"

"I'm beginning to doubt that you're actually his girlfriend, either. You look too surprised every time he touches you. So what's going on?"

Alex sighed. "I guess we're worse actors than we thought. We're not used to trying to pull off the 'couple' thing for more than ten minutes at a time. If you must know, in 'real life,' we're partners and that's all."

"And this is what? A prank?"

"No! No, it's not a prank, and please don't tell anyone else. I just didn't want it to look to people like he couldn't get a date and brought his partner instead. Which isn't true, by the way - I happen to know he has at least five of his bimbos in current rotation."

Strolling out into the plush ladies "waiting room," Annie sat down on a cushy armchair and gave Alex a hard look. "So you're just partners, huh? That's it?"

"Yes."

Annie snorted. "Who decided that?"

"Excuse me?"

"Which of you decided that you only wanted to be partners?"

"Uh, neither of us. It's just the way things worked out. Why would we be more?" Even _she_ could tell she was beginning to sound defensive.

Annie rolled her eyes and patted Alex's arm. "Alex, dear. Brilliant detective that you are, do I need to point out to you that you two have been clinging - yes, _clinging _- to each other all night? I was surprised you stopped holding hands long enough to eat dinner."

"Acting," Alex said dismissively.

"Uh-huh, and the way you humiliated Jimmy Willis after you found out about him and Bobby?"

"I'm protective of him. He's my partner and he doesn't stand up for himself enough. Someone has to."

A tiny smile appeared on Annie's face. "And how about the engagement story you guys made up on the spot, yet somehow managed to switch off sentences while telling?"

"Again, partnership," Alex said with a shrug. "There are a lot of similarities between a good partnership and a good romantic relationship."

Obviously she'd been lobbing softballs to Alex - issues the woman had long since decided on answers for - so Annie decided it was time to play hardball. "What about the way you got starry-eyed after he kissed you?"

Alex blinked. "He hasn't kissed me."

"He kissed you on the temple at dinner. You turned bright red and got a dreamy look on your face."

Red flamed in Alex's cheeks at Annie's words. "Please tell me you're the only one who noticed that."

"I think it was only me. But you admit it?"

"Fine, sure, I've had a crush on him for a long time. That doesn't have anything to do with anything."

"You're wrong," Annie said with a shake of her head. "It has a whole lot to do with the fact that he's here and actually out of his shell for the night."

"Annie, he's used to being out of his shell with me at work. It's just . . . natural."

"You haven't seen the way he's been looking at you all night when he thinks you're not paying attention."

That caught Alex's attention. "Why? How does he look at me?"

"Like you're his favorite food and he's on a diet."

It took a second to digest that, then Alex burst out laughing. "He looks at me like I'm his favorite food?"

"Ok, you want a more romantic analogy? Let me think for a second."

Alex waved a hand. "Take all the time you want, this is getting interesting."

"He's been looking at you like . . . like you're the best thing that's ever happened to him and he wishes you weren't."

"That doesn't sound particularly complimentary to me," Alex said with a skeptical look.

"Look." Annie leaned forward and took hold of Alex's hands, then went on: "How much do you know about his family?"

"Well, uh . . . his mom's in a hospice. Um, his brother's god-knows-where and they don't keep in touch as far as I know. His dad's just . . . gone."

"And what's the common link between all of them?"

"You mean besides being part of the same family?"

"Yes."

It didn't take long for Alex to figure it out. "They've all left him, in one way or another. But I'm not his family, and I've been with him for years!"

"And he probably wishes you'd never stuck with him, because now he's on the edge of his seat just waiting for the day you decide to walk away."

"What makes you think you can read him any better than I can?" Alex said sharply. "I see him every day and I never caught anything like that."

"Two reasons: first, because I happen to know him fairly well to begin with; second, and more important, he hides it when he knows you're watching. He's not on his guard looking at you around me; why would he be?"

Alex sighed and stood up. "Look, Annie, this is interesting and all, but I don't know where you're going with this. I feel like I'm being psychoanalyzed."

"Well, you're not," the other woman said as she stood up next to Alex. "I'm just giving you food for thought. Do with it what you will. Ready to go back out?"

Alex glanced in the mirror one last time to check her hair, then nodded. "Yeah."

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They found their tablemates clustered more or less where they'd left them, except for Janet, who'd disappeared and subsequently been declared no great loss to the group.

"What did you guys _do _in there?" Annie's husband, Mike, asked wonderingly as he put an arm around his wife's shoulders. "Wash and blow-dry your hair or something?"

"Just girl talk, hon," Annie replied, patting Mike's hand comfortingly.

Alex, feeling uncomfortably aware of Bobby's eyes on her now that Annie had put the thought in her head, returned to him with slow steps. "Wanna dance?" he asked as he reclaimed her hand.

She took a moment to listen to what music was playing and weigh the pros and cons. In the pro column, it was a slow Eagles song, and she did much better at slow dancing than fast; however, the obvious con was that she'd be slow-dancing with Bobby and she wasn't sure if that made her want to hide, redo her makeup like a nervous teenager, or jump him on the dance floor.

"Alex?" he said again, noting the far-away look on her face. "Dance?"

"C'mon, Alex," Annie said brightly. "Dance with the guy! Mike and I are going to."

Her fate was sealed. She could accept that gracefully. She looked up at Bobby, who was beginning to look disappointed. "Sure, let's dance."

His face immediately broke into a smile and he pulled her out onto the glowing vinyl dance floor with the enthusiasm of a man half his age, sweeping her into his arms.

A second later, Alex found herself nose to chest with seventy-six inches of Armani-clad detective, one of her hands completely swallowed in his and the other pressed against his lower back. His free hand sat just above her hip and she suppressed a shiver when his fingers slipped past the brief fabric of her shirt and touched her skin.

"Sorry," he murmured, pulling his hand back and trying to position it in a safer area.

"It's ok. I'm showing the skin anyway, nothing wrong with it being touched."

Bobby, mind racing at that statement, missed a step. After a quick recovery, he looked down at her. "What _were_ you and Annie doing in the bathroom?"

"What did you think we were doing?" she teased. "I've always wondered what men think about women going to the bathroom in groups."

"Hmm," he mumbled thoughtfully. "I always figured they took turns holding the stall doors for each other."

"What?"

"Well, public bathrooms aren't well-maintained and a lot of time the stalls have broken locks . . ." He had to stop talking when Alex started laughing and dropped her head against his chest. "What'd I say?" he asked, staring down at her.

She swallowed another giggle. "You're just so . . . logical. Most men probably would have said something . . . lewd."

"You know I don't do lewd," he admonished sternly. Then, a second later, he bent closer to her head and added playfully, "At least . . . not in public."

It was Alex's turn to miss a step as she gaped at him. "I think I need to take you to reunions more often!"

"Why?"

"They make you loosen up!" she said, moving a little closer to him and enjoying the sensation of his arm tightening around her in response.

"This is loose?" he said doubtfully.

"This is loos_er_, at least."

"Oh. Alex?"

She didn't lift her head off his chest as she said, "Yeah?"

"Thank you for coming with me tonight. I'm . . . actually enjoying myself."

"Heaven forbid," she teased, pulling her head back so she could see his face. "You're very welcome. I'm having fun, too," she continued after a moment of studying him.

As the last few chords of the song sounded, she grinned up at him. "You still want to know what Annie and I did in the bathroom?"

"Of course," he replied, reluctantly loosening his arms.

"Then you'll just have to ask me to dance again later, won't you?" she said, reaching up to pat his cheek before allowing herself to be pulled away by Dan, who had been eagerly waiting for a dance with her.

"You guys looked funny standing so close together," Dan said as they stepped back onto the dance floor. "The height difference, I mean."

"Funny," Alex said with a grin, "I thought the same thing when I first saw him talking to you."

"Touche," he replied, then added, "Oops," as his fingers made the same slip Bobby's had made on her hip. "Sorry."

"No feeling up the guests, Dan," she teased, picking up his hand and moving it out of the path of danger.

"Darn."

"Well, you can certainly _try, _I suppose, as long as you don't mind attempting to explain it to Bobby later."

"No thank you! But did I just hear you suggest that you'd let him do your dirty work? How un-feminist."

"I carry a gun; I think my feminism karma is quite secure. Besides, what I meant was more along the lines of you attempting to explain it to Bobby while I try to pull him off you."

"Hmm. Can I ask you a kind of personal question?"

"How personal?" she said warily.

"Not _that _kind of personal! I mean just something about your relationship with Bobby."

"Uh, sure. We'll see if I can answer it, at least."

"How come he's so protective of you? And when I say 'protective,' I mean 'eager to injure any other man that comes near you'."

She thought about that for a second. "I honestly have no idea. He's not like that at work, at all."

"You guys have been together for five years?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I'm happy for you. No, seriously," he said when Alex looked skeptical. "To have been together five years and still be as into each other as you are, that's impressive." The music began to fade out and he led her to the edge of the dance floor.

"Well, thank you," she told him. "I'll pass on the message to the big guy." Great, now she felt guilty in addition to confused. His friends were all so glad to see him with someone he seemed to care about; little did they know that she was just a big fake.

She needed a drink. And maybe a little light-hearted flirting with Oli.


	10. Facing the music

A/N: This chapter is almost entirely dialogue, with very little description. Does it read better or worse, or the same?

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She bellied up to the bar a few minutes later, feeling vaguely depressed, as well as angry at herself for being depressed in the first place, which just made her more depressed because she was angry at herself . . .

"Hey, sweetcheeks," Oli said, slipping back into his comical bartender persona as he approached her. "What's wrong? Bobby leave you hanging?"

She shook her head. "No, he's here somewhere. I think I'm just coming off the sugar rush from dessert or something. Feel kind of crappy."

"Ever had a chocolate martini?"

She blinked. "A what?"

"Chocolate martini," he repeated, producing a martini glass from under the bar. "They seem to cheer most women up. Although," he added, giving her a wink, "you're a cut above most women."

Ah, this was what she had been hoping for. Some cheerful conversation where she didn't have to lie. "Well, thanks. I'll try the martini. What's in it?"

"My version has vodka, Godiva liqueur, and creme de cacao."

"Damn," she said, slipping onto the lone stool that sat in front of the bar. "When you say chocolate, you mean _chocolate_!"

"You bet." It took him only a few seconds to mix the drink and then slide it in front of her. "All yours."

She took a tentative sip, then a larger one. "Mmm. Do I need to tip the bartender when he makes me an amazing drink?" she said with a teasing smile.

"You can tip the bartender by giving him information," Oli replied, leaning his elbow on the bar as if settling in for a conversation.

Alex took another sip and tried not to mutter something obscene at the thought of more questions. "What kind of information, exactly? Do I need to point out that you know far more about me than I do about you? Or about anyone else here, for that matter."

He paused and seemed to consider that. "Well, what do you want to know about me?"

"Got a job?" she asked after another sip of her drink.

"Yup."

She threw a handy maraschino cherry at him. "You know what I mean."

He turned his palms up in surrender. "I'm gonna charge you for that cherry," he joked. "And I'm a teacher."

"What kind of teacher?"

"A poor one," he said with a grin. "I teach sociology and psychology to classrooms full of bored teenagers. What can I say, public schools like multitaskers."

"Aha!" Alex toasted him with her drink. "That explains why you see things."

"See things?" He moved away from her for a second, opening a beer for himself, then looked back up. "You mean things like the fact that something's really eating you right now?"

She sighed. "Yes, but if you could forget that particular item, I'd appreciate it."

He shook his head. "Sorry, no can do. Hasn't anyone ever told you that bartenders are the best psychologists? Go on and tell me, maybe I can help you talk it out."

"That's not a good idea. It's . . . personal."

"I'm all ears and no lips," he said sincerely.

"That's a new way to put it." She sighed. "I'm just . . . having a crisis in my self-confidence or something."

"What's 'or something'? Does this have to do with Bobby, the magical fiance-who-isn't-or-maybe-is-but-you're-not-sure?"

She almost choked on a sip of her martini. "What?"

"Well, you two seem to be a little confused when it comes to figuring out your relationship. I'm assuming that you agreed to pretend you're dating, and then someone went a little too far?"

She didn't have the energy or inclination to argue with Oli after getting a lecture from Annie only minutes ago. "Yeah," she said sullenly, staring into her almost-empty glass.

"So what's the problem? Enjoying it too much?"

"Stop noticing things."

He pried her empty glass from her hands and put it in the sink behind the bar. "You want water now, or another drink?"

"That martini had quite a kick, time to tone it down. I'll have whatever beer you're having," she said distractedly as she looked over her shoulder.

He checked his bottle. "Miller Lite? Sure." He opened one and sat it in front of her. Noticing that she still seemed to be searching the crowd, he tapped her hand to get her attention. "I think I saw him dancing with Annie a few seconds ago."

"Oh."

"Come on, what happened to the cheerful Alex I saw at dinner?"

"She got sent on a guilt trip. Leave a message after the beep," Alex replied, turning back to him.

"Guilt trip, huh? Who paid for the airfare?"

She cracked a smile and took a sip of her beer. "Annie."

"Uh-oh. Is this a jealousy thing? I don't do so well with those," Oli said nervously, eyes on her face.

Jealousy, hah! If only it were, things would be so much easier. "No, not jealousy," she sighed. "The opposite."

"She tried to sell you her husband?" he guessed.

Alex reached behind her to re-tie the bottom tie of her shirt, which was feeling dangerously loose, then looked back up at him. "Not quite. She's like you, she figured out that we're not what we've been saying."

He resisted the urge to take a peek at her semi-bare back when it was visible, then rewarded his restraint with another sip of his beer. "So? I don't seem to be making you feel guilty, what'd she say that was different?"

She looked over her shoulder again, this time catching sight of Bobby and Annie dancing in the crowd, and sighed. He looked like he was enjoying himself, which made her feel slightly less guilty. On the other hand, he was dancing with another woman while enjoying himself, which was less than ideal.

"Alex?" Oli prompted.

"Oh, sorry. Uh . . . she sat me down and gave me a lecture about how I may think we're only pretending but really Bobby's in love with me and won't admit it because I'm his favorite food. Or something."

"I was with you up to the 'favorite food' part. Give me that again?"

She gave him a tiny smile. "Mixing my metaphors, sorry. What she was trying to tell me - I think - is that I ought to know that he's desperately in love with me even though he's never given me the tiniest sign, because she can read him better than I can and she can tell."

He blinked. "That's a mouthful."

"No kidding. A headful, too."

"It's probably true, though," he said, leaning past her to grab an empty glass a passer-by had set on the bar. "Annie's pretty insightful."

She was _not _going to let herself get sucked into this! A minor unrequited crush on her partner was more than enough for her to handle, let alone a full-blown infatuation. "Well you've been watching us all night. What do you think?"

Oli glanced at the dance floor, then looked back at her. "Look, I don't know him nearly as well as Annie does, but for what it's worth, to me it looks like he's definitely interested in you. Love? That I can't tell you."

Alex groaned and took another swig of her beer. "That's what I was afraid of."

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As Alex sipped her chocolate martini, Annie pulled Bobby onto the dance floor with a swift yank on his arm. He stumbled after her, surprised. "I thought you hated dancing," he said, looking down at her.

"I do. But I make exceptions when I'm pumping my co-dancer for information."

"No," he said firmly, moving to pull away from her. "All I've been doing all night is answering questions about me and Alex, I'm tired of it."

She kept her grip on his hand and gave him a knowing look. "Maybe that has something to do with the fact that fake girlfriends make people curious."

"I . . . what?"

Annie snorted. "What did Alex _tell _you we did in the bathroom?"

"She didn't tell me anything, yet." He drew back from her slightly to look her in the eye. "What did you do in there that's so secret? She told you . . . the truth?"

"Uh, not quite. Actually, I told her the truth and she eventually owned up to it. She seemed really upset to be found out."

"What kind of 'upset'?" he said worriedly.

"The kind where she begged me not to tell anyone because it might make you look bad," Annie said with a grin. "Pretty, a hardass, _and _loyal. She may be a fake, but you picked a winner anyway."

"So, uh . . . what else did she tell you?"

"Bobby, are you asking me to reveal the secrets of girl talk?"

"Well, yes. Unless," he added hastily, "it involves your sex live or anything illegal."

"Want to hear about our period cramps?"

"Not those, either. Come on, Annie. You brought it up, now show your hand."

"Oh, fine. Spoilsport," she said, poking him in the side. "Let's see . . . she informed me that you and I dated; I informed her that you and she _weren't _dating. She -"

"Wait, _she _told _you _that?"

"Calm down, she figured it out for herself. Informed me that 'I'm a detective'," she said, mimicking Alex's voice, "and that figuring things out is what she does. She's not upset about it, don't worry."

"Oh. What, uh . . . what else?"

"Why didn't you just come out and ask her?"

"I thought she was going to tell me, but the dance ended before she got around to it. So now you get to fill me in."

She sighed. "Fine. Ok, well after I said I had been worried she'd get upset, she informed me that it was hard to be jealous when she could tell I was only interested in Mike. Then . . . hmm, we made a bargain involving wine and not hitting on each other's dates."

He blinked. "Where does the wine come in?"

"Gets poured over the head of the person who breaks the bargain," she said with a smirk. "You know, she really cares about you," she added casually, watching his face.

"She's used to trying to protect me; I think it's become reflexive."

"And you're used to underrating yourself. Why isn't it possible that it's not just reflex?"

"Uh." He turned his head, scanning the area for Alex; he thought he caught a glimpse of her back at the bar, but before he could be sure, it was gone again. "I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm just saying it's not what happens to be true in this case."

Without warning, Annie pulled her hand out of his and smacked him in the side of the head.

He jumped back and put a hand to the injured area. "Ow! What was that for?"

"For being an idiot!"

"About _what_?"

"Oh, wonderful, you're even being an idiot about being an idiot. Come here," she ordered, pulling him off the flashing dance floor and out of the path of traffic. "Tell me this: if this is just business as usual for both of you, why have you not let go of her for more than, oh, half an hour at a time? And why has she allowed it? Granted, I don't know her well, but I get the impression she doesn't do clingy."

"Because . . . because it's a nice change. I don't get much physical contact with people who aren't violent criminals."

"She says you have plenty of dates. With bimbos, might I add."

"Yeah, well, Alex doesn't come home with me at night."

Oh, the replies she could make to that! Annie took a moment to consider which of his statements she should address first. After a second, she decided to go chronologically and said, "You didn't answer my question about why she's allowing you to cling to her."

He shrugged. "She agreed to play the role. She's playing it to the hilt."

"Do I need to hit you again?"

He backed up a step. "Uh, I'd prefer you didn't."

"Well then stop playing dumb. I know you're way smarter than this."

"What am I playing dumb about, Annie? Seems to be I'm being realistic. Scientific, if that sounds better. Believe no theory until you have duplicable evidence."

"Look at her," she said, jerking him forward another step and pointing to where Alex sat at the bar, "and tell me you only asked her here as a convenience."

"I . . ." He sighed heavily. "Why are you pushing me about this?"

"Because I like her and I think I'd have fun getting drunk at your wedding. Now answer my question."

"What's the answer I'm supposed to give to make you leave me alone?"

"You can be such an asshole sometimes, you know that? If you really want to get rid of me, that's fine, I'll go hunt down Mike. But I'll leave you with one thought."

"What's that?" he said tiredly.

"When you kissed her temple at dinner she almost melted in her chair. See you later." And with that, Annie had disappeared into the throng of people and Bobby was left standing at the edge of the dance floor, trying to figure out what, exactly, melting implied.


	11. One on one

A/N: Well, it's short, but at least it exists. I think we're getting near the end of this one...maybe one or two more chapters. Enjoy :)

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It took Bobby a few seconds to realize that he'd just been abandoned in the middle of the room. When it finally hit him, he made a mental note to find a way to get back at Annie and then allowed himself to slump against the wall and think for a moment.

He hadn't noticed any of the things she had mentioned, so either he wasn't as observant as he thought, or his friend was wrong. His ego demanded he figure out which.

He needed to look again. Find Alex, see if he could pick up on this "melting" thing.

Squaring his shoulders, he headed for where he'd last seen her, at the bar.

And there she was, the same way he'd found her a few hours ago - bare back facing the room as she leaned over the bar to say something amusing to Oli. He hung back for a moment, trying to pick out whatever it was that Annie had noticed in her, but he saw essentially the same thing he'd seen every day for five years: an attractive woman chatting calmly with another person, making no overt moves to get closer or farther away.

Reminding himself that she'd been accepting his outrageous behavior all night already, he took a deep breath, sidled up behind her, and before Oli could give her a warning, slid both arms around her waist and kissed the back of her neck.

Alex stiffened as if she'd been shot, then immediately relaxed and leaned back against him when she recognized that the hands on her were his. She twisted her head to try to see his face, but he kept just out of her line of sight. "Bobby! What was that for?" she asked breathlessly when she realized he wouldn't let her turn around see him.

_Breathless is good, right?_ he thought.

"Just checking," he said, trying to sound light-hearted.

"Checking what?"

"Looks to me like he's checking you're still going home with him tonight," Oli said with a grin.

Alex gave Oli a threatening look, then tried another tactic and leaned her head backwards, looking at Bobby upside-down. "Well?"

"I was going to . . . uh, I mean . . . would you like to dance?"

She suddenly found herself more interested. He'd almost lost his habit of stammering over the course of the night, at least when speaking to her, but now it was back. She wondered what had triggered the regression . . .

"Alex?" he said, his arms tightening around her. "Did you hear me?"

"Yeah, I heard you. Sure, let's dance." And with that, she took a deep breath, stole a glance at Oli, who was grinning like an idiot, and slid off the stool into Bobby's arms.

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"Flirting with Oli again, I see?" he said as he wrapped his arms around her again on the dance floor.

She leaned into him and shrugged. "He makes a mean chocolate martini."

"A martini can't be chocolate," he protested with complete seriousness. "Martinis are made from gin and vermouth, and -"

"It can when Oli makes it. And I wasn't flirting with him, anyway. More like whining to him."

"Whining?" he echoed, suddenly worried. "About what? What's wrong? I thought you were having a good time."

She sighed. "I am having a good time. I just . . . your friends all seem so excited to see you with someone they think you love, and I started feeling guilty."

"But . . . guilty?" he said, staring down at her. "They're happy, I'm happy, what's to feel guilty about?"

"I'm a fake," she said with an awkward half-shrug.

He allowed his hand to trail down her back until it rested just on the edge of decency. "You're not a fake," he countered, pulling her closer. "You're exactly what they think you are . . ." Hmm, he needed a deep breath before continuing with that sentence. He inhaled, exhaled, and went on, ". . . exactly what they think you are - a beautiful, sharp-witted woman who puts up with me for some godforsaken reason." He was pretty sure she caught her breath at the word _beautiful_.

"Bobby, don't." Despite the protest inherent in her words, she moved closer rather than pulling away, letting her head rest against him.

"Don't what?"

"Don't put yourself down. It's ridiculous."

"I could say the same for you."

She sighed. "I'm not putting myself down. I'm . . . oh, I don't know."

He took his hand away from her back and replaced it under her chin, tiling her head up so he could look her in the eye. "Why don't you tell me what's _really _wrong."

"It's . . . not important."

"Seems pretty damn important to you, Eames. Come on," he said, pulling her off the dance floor and toward the door to the ballroom.

"What?" she managed as he towed her along.

"We need to talk."

That got her attention. Digging in her heels, she tried to hide the discomfort in her voice as she said, "No we don't. We're here so you can have fun; stop overanalyzing what I may or may not be worrying about."

"No."

"Bobby!"

He ignored her protestations and led her into a semi-deserted room that looked like it was a cocktail lounge in its waking hours. "Sit," he ordered, giving her a gentle push toward a loveseat-sized chair.

With a sigh, she sat and glared up at him. "What the hell's going on with you?"

"Annie talked to you?" he asked, although he already knew the answer.

She tensed. "A lot of people have talked to me. Why?"

"What did she say to you?"

Alex rolled her eyes, suddenly realizing that she knew what this was probably about. "Calm down, would you? I already met one of your exes tonight, and I didn't kill her even though I think she's a skank. Annie's perfectly safe from me."

He blinked. "Huh? Oh, her and me? That's not what I meant. I want to know what _else _she told you."

She gulped. "What do you mean, 'what else'? It was just, you know, girl stuff."

"Did she mention me?"

"Of course she did; you're the connection between us. Where are you going with this, Bobby?"

Without warning, he plopped down next to her on the seat, making her jump. "Can I ask you something?"

"You've been asking me various 'something's for the past ten minutes. Knock yourself out."

"I'm serious."

"So am I," she said, crossing her arms and slumping back in the chair. "Go ahead and ask."

"What does it mean to say that a woman 'melts' at something someone else does?"

She looked at him in consternation. Of all the possible questions she had thought he might come out with, that was _not _one of them. "Uh . . . usually it either means that she's incredibly pissed - as in, 'having a meltdown' - or else that she's, uh, maybe touched? I can't think of the right word for it. Happy. Soft."

"So if someone said 'She almost melted when you did X,' . . . it would be a good thing?"

"Where the hell are you going with this, Bobby? I need context if you want an accurate answer."

Context was the one thing he was _not _going to give her, at least until he was sure of what was going on. "Just take a guess."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine, then my guess is 'yes.' If they only said 'melted' and not 'melted down' or something, it's probably good. Now, who melted and what did you do?"

"Um."

She cleared her throat and looked at him expectantly.

"What did Annie say to you about me?" he said, rather than answer her question.

"She said, uh . . ." Alex thought furiously for safe topics. "She said you were oblivious to how much her husband looks like you. And that you and I have been clinging together all night."

"That's it?"

"Why are you asking me all this? Did she say something to you?" she shot back.

"She . . ."

Alex hoped her face wasn't turning as red as it felt like it was. "What did she tell you?"

He leaned forward, studying her face. She got the distinct impression that he was reading her like a book, blush or no blush. "She told me . . . uh . . . well, she didn't say anything specific about . . ."

"Bobby."

"She just said I should reconsider my opinion of why you've been . . . so attentive all night."

"Oh? And what was her opinion, then?"

"She . . ." He sighed. "Can I try something?"

"Why does that sound slightly ominous?" They were sitting in a deserted room; how many types of "something" were there that he could want to try? She wondered if her imagination was just running wild tonight or if he might really do what she suspected he was thinking.

"It's not. Well, I don't think it is . . ." He shifted uncomfortably in the chair. "Can I?"

She gave him a tired look. "Go ahead. I'll tell you if I change my mind."

"Um . . . ok." He licked his lips nervously. "You'll tell me if you want me to stop?"

"Bobby," she said through teeth that she was trying not to grit, "just get it over with."

"Sorry." He took a deep breath. "You . . . the melting thing . . . she said that, uh, at dinner . . ." He caught the glare she was directing at him and stopped. "Sorry," he said again. Then, moving hesitantly as if he feared she was about to jump up and run at any second, he laid his hand on her back, between her shoulder blades, and urged her toward him.

This was really happening, Alex thought as she allowed him to control her movement. Or had Oli spiked her last drink? "Bobby?" she whispered nervously, only an inch away from him now.

"She said you melted," he said softly, moving his other hand up to cradle the back of her head. "When I . . ." He stopped short and, with a determined effort, pushed the words away and leaned forward the last few millimeters until his lips met hers.

Alex stiffened for a second at the contact, her lips closed tightly under his . . .

And then the sensation of his large, warm hand on her bare back and his equally large, warm mouth against her lips penetrated her brain and she sagged into his arms with a quiet gasp.

"Alex . . ." he breathed against her mouth as her arms stole around him. "She said . . . you melted . . ."

Her only answer was a shiver as she leaned into him.


	12. Fame and fortune

A/N: I know, long evil wait for this update...but school is sucking away at my will to live and/or write...

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"Bobby," Alex murmured a few seconds later, pulling back from the kiss. "Not that I necessarily have a problem with making out like teenagers every now and then, but . . . you want to give me more of an explanation than 'She said you melted' before we go on with this?"

He looked at her blankly for a second as his distracted brain tried to process her words. "Um . . ."

"Tell me what Annie told you," she prompted when she saw confusion on his face.

"That's . . . basically it. She said that I was an idiot for not noticing what's right in front of me and missing how you react when I touch you." He cocked his head to the side, looking at her curiously. "Why, what did she say to you?"

She was tempted to blurt out something about being his favorite food, but instead just shook her head; she didn't feel like trying to explain Annie's convoluted metaphor right now.

He took her chin in his hand and held it still so that she couldn't turn away while he scrutinized the tense expression on her face, which told him that there was something else, something she didn't want to tell him. "She said something that hurt you. Look, you have to understand that she -"

"She didn't hurt me," Alex interrupted him. "She just . . . surprised me."

"How?"

She sighed. "Are you still afraid I'm going to ask Deakins for a new partner someday?"

"Huh?" he grunted, baffled by the seemingly unrelated question.

"That's what she said. Well, at least partly. She said that she knows you so well that she can tell you're sure it's just a matter of time until I stop wanting to work with you. So, is it true?"

He sighed and looked away. "Annie talks too much."

"Is that a 'yes'?" she tried again, not willing to let him avoid such an important question. Whether it made him uncomfortable or not, she needed to know if he trusted her; if he still believed she'd desert him, they were going to have to work on their partnership until he was convinced that she was staying.

"Sometimes I think about it," he admitted reluctantly. "Usually when things are going really well and I'm waiting for the bubble to burst."

She gave him a tiny smile. "Want to hear exactly how she tried to explain it to me?"

"Uh . . . I'm not sure. Will it be more embarrassing than anything else I've already experienced tonight?"

"Doubt it. You'll probably laugh."

"Alright," he said, still skeptical. "Go ahead and tell me."

"She said, and I quote: 'He looks at you like you're his favorite food and he's on a diet.'"

He blinked and repeated blankly, "You're my favorite . . . food?"

"That was pretty much my reaction too. When I looked at her like she was nuts, she tried again and said that you look at me like I'm the best thing that ever happened to you and you wish I weren't."

"I have to have a talk with her about playing amateur psychologist," he said, trying to sound unconcerned by the turn this conversation had taken.

"How about you have a talk with _me_, about why tonight is the first time I'm hearing about any of this?"

"Oh," he shot back, leaning slightly away so he could see her face more clearly, "and you've been up-front about everything that's been going through your head? We both know we've been avoiding this for years."

She countered his movement away with her own movement closer to him. "Point taken. But I'm serious about talking."

He took her hand in his, fingertips tapping out a nonexistent melody on the back of it. "I know what you're saying, and I realize you're right, but do you think . . . uh . . ." He broke off, unsure how to phrase his request without making it sound like an avoidance tactic, and just concentrated on the touch of her hand instead.

"Do I think what?" she prompted, watching him watch her. "That we could forget this happened until the end of the night?"

His fingers stopped moving and he looked up at her in surprise. "Sort . . . uh . . . sort of."

"Ok, Scarlett," she teased. "I can do that, but you have to promise that you're not going to try to run away from it when we _are_ out of here."

"That's . . . it? You don't mind?"

She leaned forward a little more, pulling her hand out of his and lifting it to cup his cheek. "Believe it or not, I'm having fun, too. I'd rather ride the night out and _then _worry about this . . . thing between us."

He let out a breath, surprised at how painless this conversation was turning out to be. "So if we forget about it for the night, then how do we . . . are we still . . .?"

"I'm still your girlfriend and you're still the commitment-phobe," she said with a playful smile, only a few inches away from his face. "We could treat it like . . . a kind of practice."

"Practice?" he asked. "Practice for what? You mean . . . how we'd act if this," he said, gesturing to them and their intimate position, "became real?"

"Yeah," she said, a little defensively. "The way I see it, it's either that, or we go back in there with insane amounts of tension between us because we're not sure if we're allowed to touch each other."

"So we just . . . go back in there?" he parroted dumbly.

She pulled back to look at him. "Well, that was my plan, but you sound slightly doubtful about it."

"It's not that I'm, uh, doubtful. I'm just . . . not sure what normal is, anymore, which makes it hard to tell myself to 'act normal.'"

" 'Normal,' as in how to act around me, you mean?"

"Yeah. But I know we do have to go back out there," he added with resignation. "I'll figure it out." Standing up, he pulled her up with him. "Ready?"

She found herself once again nose-to-chest with him as he inadvertently pulled her up a little too close, and, taking a small step back, just enough so she could breathe without drooling on his shirt, she studied his face for a second. "No, I am_ not _ready yet, Detective Goren." Her arms wound themselves around his neck, her fingers dipping slightly inside the collar of his shirt, and she applied gentle pressure to pull his head down toward her.

"Alex . . ."

"Shh," she murmured. "Consider this a refresher course on how to act with a girlfriend." Then, not giving him time to respond to her comment, she slid the fingers of one hand into his hair and kissed him.

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They re-entered the ballroom five minutes later, Alex tugging nervously at the back of her top, which was beginning to come untied again. Pulling him to a stop against the first wall they encountered, she held up a finger to tell him to wait. "Hold on, I need to adjust. Stand behind me, would you?"

He obeyed, but said as he moved to block her back from the rest of the room, "Uh, what exactly do you mean, 'adjust'?"

"Re-tie. Whatever you want to call it. This top was not intended to be worn during vigorous activity." She reached behind her back and tugged on the loose end of the middle tie. "And this," she added, holding up the string for him to see, "is rather critical to my staying decent."

She had a point, he decided, at least judging by the way the sides of the shirt were gapping around her now that the string was untied . . . a state which exposed just enough of the curve of her breasts to tantalize him_. Figures_, he thought_. It just had to be now, when I can't satisfy my curiosity without being afraid we'd be walked in on by old classmates. _"Do you want me to do that?" he asked, realizing as he pulled himself out of his reverie that she was trying to re-tie the strings blindly.

"Yeah, please," she replied, dropping her hands. "Just tie it in a bow, and then re-do the bottom one while you're at it."

He turned his focus to the task at hand and did his best to not notice the expanse of bare skin she was unashamedly presenting to him. "This is, uh . . . very pretty. The outfit, I mean," he added hastily. "Is it new?"

It was impressive how he could maneuver his large hands to do such a delicate task, and do it as well as she could, she mused. His hands were warm, too, and . . . no, this was not a good thing to start thinking about right now. Forcibly distracting herself, she raised one hand to brush away some strands of hair that had escaped her french twist and looked over her shoulder at him. "Yeah, it is. You enjoying it?"

Unable to resist, he leaned forward and dropped a kiss on the temptingly exposed curve of her shoulder as he moved his hands to the second tie of her shirt. "It would be impolite of me to say yes to that, you know," he told her as he tied the string as neatly as he could.

When she felt him drop his hands, she turned to face him with a playfully skeptical look. "I thought you said that it's only in public that you won't do 'lewd.'"

It took him a moment to put his jaw back into place and regain his composure after that comment, but when he did, he just smiled back and slid his arms around her waist, allowing his fingers to brush the skin of her back as he pulled her into him. "Well, I consider high school reunions to be pretty 'public;' I don't know about you."

"Oh, fine," she said, giving him a peevish poke in the arm. "Be that wa-"

She was interrupted by a voice from behind Bobby's shoulder calling his name, and they released each other guiltily, turning to see who was speaking.

"Bobby Goren?" repeated the woman standing in front of them, who Alex quickly identified as the ugly-duckling-turned-swan, Emily Vincent, whom Susan and Janet had referred to at dinner. The look on the congresswoman's face was almost shy, and Alex suppressed the mischievous urge to assure her that Goren didn't bite.

"Emily," he said, giving her hand a squeeze and displaying one of his genuine, boyish smiles. "Or should I call you 'Congresswoman'?"

"Ugh," she responded with a roll of her eyes. "Let's stick with 'Emily,' if you don't mind. I thought I spotted you earlier, but I wasn't sure. I finally worked up the nerve after that second glass of wine I had with dinner to say hello and potentially look like an idiot if you turned out not to be you."

"Well, uh, you found me and I _am _me," he said awkwardly, not sure what the proper response to her statement was. "Although technically, you found both me and my, uh, girlfriend. Emily, this is -"

"Alexandra Eames," Emily finished for him. "I know. You two get around."

Alex and Bobby looked at each other, then back at her. "Uh . . . we do?" Alex asked, wondering what the woman had heard about them.

"Well, I should say that your reputations get around. If you never noticed, politicians get all hot under the collar at the thought of befriending a pair of star detectives. You're a popular topic at fundraisers - who's met you, who's been associated with a case you worked, how much publicity they got out of it, and so forth. Oh, and it's nice to meet you, Alexandra," she added, belatedly realizing that she'd cut off Bobby's formal introduction.

" 'Alex,' please," Alex said. "And I'm not sure which part of that I should be most alarmed by: the fact that we're a popular topic at parties or the fact that politicians are hot under their collars for us.

"I've always hated politics," Bobby said easily, slipping an arm around her shoulders. "There's entirely too much hotness under the collective political collar, all the time." As he'd intended, that got a laugh out of both women. "So you know all about us," he said to Emily as he felt Alex wrap an answering arm around his waist, "but we don't know anything about you other than your job title. How have you been, anyway? Still playing chess?"

"When I get time, which isn't too often anymore. Dom challenges me to a game every now and then, though."

"Dom?" Bobby asked. "Vincent? I hadn't realized that he was the 'Vincent' you married. Dom did chess with us for a few years," he explained to Alex. "Is he here tonight?"

"He's here, at least technically," she said, somehow managing to look both exasperated with and tolerant of her husband's behavior. "Probably holed up in a corner somewhere to avoid having to talk to anyone. He doesn't make a very good political wife," she joked. "No hand-shaking or baby-kissing for him."

"He leaves that to you?" Alex asked, wondering if the woman was purposely joking about the stereotype or if that was really just her world.

"Unfortunately, yes. Even the ugly ones," Emily said with a grimace. "Not quite what I envisioned politics being back when I got into it."

"How _did _you get into it?" Bobby asked. "I remember you as being too shy to get up in front of a class of bored teenagers, let alone half the legislative branch of the US government."

Emily gave that a moment's consideration, trying to think of a good explanation. "Probably," she finally said, "the same way the shy, submissive Bobby Goren I remember found himself playing a famous detective: I just kind of fell into it. Dom and I moved upstate - well, technically it's downstate, but you know how everything outside the City is considered 'up' - after I finished law school, to a town called Tuxedo. When the kids started middle school and I didn't need to be home for them during the day anymore, I found myself with a lot of free time on my hands. I started out on the school board, moved on to town council . . . and somehow, when I wasn't paying attention, I ended up a politician instead of just a lawyer who happened to be active in the community."

"You have kids?" Bobby asked, slightly incredulously. It was a big adjustment to think of any of his high school classmates with children, given that he remembered them as barely out of childhood, themselves, and he figured it would take him a few minutes to absorb the reality.

Emily's face relaxed into a proud smile. "Yeah, we decided we needed more torture in our lives than just law could give us. Jenny started college this year, and Christopher is a junior in high school." She paused, shaking her head as if reprimanding herself. "But you don't care about that. That is, unless you guys have kid stories of your own to swap . . .?"

There was a moment of silence as they processed her words. Then, eyes widening, Alex shook her head. "No, no kids for either of us. We've . . . fallen a little behind schedule when it comes to life outside of work." She usually tried to avoid thinking about how she'd probably never have children of her own, and she wished now they hadn't gotten themselves into this conversation.

Noticing the hint of wistfulness in her voice, Bobby tightened his arm around her and rested his cheek on the top of her head. "Hopefully one day," he said, as much to Alex as to Emily.

"I can certainly understand the falling behind thing," Emily said, nodding. "If I hadn't had mine _before _I got into public service, I don't think I would ever have gotten around to fitting them in. But you know, you still have time. You've built your careers up so high that the NYPD would probably hire a babysitter for your kids if either of you demanded it, rather than lose you."

"Now there's a thought," Alex said with a grin. "But forget the reactions of the brass; I think Bobby might implode if I got pregnant_." Especially with his child_, she thought to herself_. Imagine, a mini-Goren doing laps in my belly! _"He barely survived the last time I went on leave."

"I wouldn't implode," he protested, knowing as he said it that it was a lie. He'd been worried about her enough when she had been pregnant with her nephew; he suspected that if the child was theirs he'd be tempted to handcuff her to her desk chair. Whether that counted as "implosion" or not, he didn't know, but either way, he was pretty sure he wouldn't survive the pregnancy, since Alex would probably kill him before the nine months were up.

"You'd spend the last trimester whining about getting stuck with a new partner," she teased, twisting around under his arms so she could face him, "just like you did last time."

"I didn't _whine_. I just . . . pointed out to a few people that Bishop wasn't as good as you."

"You whined, Bobby. Face it." Looking back at Emily, she said, "We're a co-dependent partnership, what can I say?"

"I guess it would be hard not to be," Emily said with a shrug. "If you're always together, for work _and_ play, I'd imagine you get used to having the other person there."

Bobby and Alex looked at each other thoughtfully.

_Hell, _she thought, _I'm only with him at work, but I'm ALREADY used to always having him there._

_Co-dependent, _Bobby thought, _I guess that's what it is. I certainly depend on her. And hey, I certainly wouldn't balk at having her with me for "play," too. _He pulled her a little closer and laced his fingers through hers when she raised a hand to where his dangled over her shoulder. "You have a point, Emily," he said. "It's definitely a little too easy to get used to."

"Nah," she scoffed. "When you're in love, you have to take the 'easy' where you can get it. Take it from someone who's been married way too long: there'll be plenty of 'hard' to balance it out." She took another look at the odd picture they made, Alex's small frame against Bobby's hulking one. "Do you guys mind if I ask how you deal with dating when you're working?"

She was answered by complete silence and a pair of cautious looks. "We, uh, just don't flaunt it," Bobby finally managed vaguely. "Crime scenes generally aren't romantic to begin with, so it's not so much of a conflict . . ."

Having been given an extra few seconds to think while Bobby spoke, Alex had a better answer: "Like you said a few minutes ago, the Department wants to keep us. They know from experience that neither of us is anywhere near as good when paired with someone else as when we're with each other, so as long as we're not obvious about it, they're willing to tolerate it."

Bobby looked down at her, impressed by her thoughts, which actually sounded pretty viable. "Don't ask, don't tell."

"Makes sense," Emily said with a nod. "I was just curious because I know I've seen you together a few times over the years, and I never noticed anything unusual between you."

That was an easy one, Alex thought. "Yeah, well," she said with a chuckle, "it's hard to notice anything unusual when 'unusual' has become your trademark version of 'normal'."


	13. Superlatives

A/N: OMG I updated! Prepare for armageddon, hell must have frozen over!

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"Well, I suppose you've got a point there," Emily began, but was prevented from saying anything more by the sound of a microphone being tapped a little too hard.

"Ladies and gentlemen," boomed a male voice from the front of the room. "My name's Walt and I'd like to welcome you all again to the party. It's only because so many of you turned out that this reunion is going so well!"

"Ugh," Annie's voice groaned from a few feet away from where Alex, Emily, and Bobby stood. They all turned to look at her curiously as she and her husband walked toward them. "Why do they have to do the fake enthusiasm thing _over _and _over_?"

"It's the chip they got implanted in their brains when they signed on for the job," said Oli as he approached from the other direction with Dan in tow. "Forces them to smile and squeal and not take a hint."

"Hey," Alex said with a grin, looking over her shoulder at him, "did you abandon the bar?"

"More or less," he said with a shrug. "Not my booze to protect, anyway, and I was getting bored."

"We hope you've enjoyed the dancing so far," Walt's voice continued, "but now we've got something special planned for the rest of the night . . ."

Groans filled the room."Why do I not like the sound of the word 'surprise'?" mumbled Annie, dropping her head against her husband's arm.

"Probably because it can't possibly mean anything good," Mike remarked matter-of-factly, raising a hand to brush her hair out of her face for her. "Hey, Susan, right?" he added as Susan and her husband made their way toward the group.

"Yep. And don't blame me for this," she replied, gesturing to the stage. "I argued against it!"

"Toward the end of our senior year, we all voted for class superlatives - things like 'most likely to succeed' and 'best dressed'," the amplified voice went on. "The results of the vote appeared in the yearbook, along with pictures of the winners for each, and -"

"Get on with it!" a voice from the dance floor heckled.

Walt blinked, then gave the shouter an awkward smile. "Ok, if you say so. We've got those photos loaded into the slide projector at the back of the room tonight, and we're going to do a retrospective. I'm going to call up the winners in each category to stand in front of their yearbook picture so we can all see how they've changed!"

There was complete silence, followed by a few catcalls and jeers.

"Oh, no," Annie and Oli moaned in unison.

Alex looked at them in surprise. "What's wrong with that? I think it sounds kind of interesting. It's exactly what Bobby was hoping for when he decided to come!"

All eyes turned to Goren, who looked at his feet and coughed self-consciously. "Uh, Alex, that wasn't exactly what I -"

"Oh, come on. You told me you wanted to see how the rest of the class turned out."

"I didn't exactly . . ."

"We'll start with the Class Couple," Walt went on. "Jimmy Willis and Janet Stapleton! Come on up here, guys!"

There was scattered applause and a minor commotion in the crowd as the two made their way toward the stage.

"Wow," Alex muttered, watching Jimmy Willis stagger up the stairs toward the podium, "he hasn't held up very well, has he?" The picture being projected on the screen behind the stage showed two smiling teenagers, both in significantly better shape than they were now; a svelte Janet stood in arms of a Jimmy with dark hair and no potbelly, laughing up into his face. "They looked . . . happy back then," Alex added in mild surprise.

"I always thought they made the perfect couple," Oli told her with a grin. "Jerky jock meets stuck-up cheerleader. She certainly fits better with him than she ever did with you, Bobby."

"You won't get any argument from me on that," Bobby told him distractedly as he pulled Alex a little closer.

She looked up at him and grinned. "He'd better not."

"Save the declarations of love for later," Oli said with a wave of his hand, watching Janet and Jimmy work their way back to the dance floor. "I think they're going to read out the next names."

"Next on the list is Best Dressed," Walt announced, "and that was Dan Hon and Casey Michaels." The picture on the screen switched to one of Dan and a girl Alex hadn't met, both impeccably dressed and groomed and grinning for the camera. The chess group hooted their approval.

"He looked slick," Alex remarked.

"He _is _slick," replied Annie with a grin. "For a chess nerd, let me tell you, he got a lot of girls."

"As I recall, you were one of them for a month or so," Oli told her with a smirk.

Mike made a choked noise that was amusing to everyone except himself and looked down at his wife. "You never told me that!"

Annie lashed out with one foot and caught Oli in the shin. Smiling angelically as he yelped in pain and hopped on his uninjured leg, she tilted her head up and kissed her husband's chin. "Believe me, he's not my type anymore."

"Better not be," he grumbled good-naturedly, slinging an arm over her shoulders before directing his attention to the stage, where Dan and Casey had just disappeared to the side.

"Moving on, next we have Most Theatrical, Annette Rialto and Sean Wheeler."

Annie accepted a squeeze from her husband before heading to the stage with a blush on her cheeks. Once there, she met up with Sean Wheeler, who had been a friend back then, and gave him a hug before they turned back to the room and stood in front of their projected picture self-consciously.

"You know," Dan said as he jogged back to the group and came to a stop next to Alex, "she doesn't look like she changed at all."

"No," Alex agreed, "she doesn't. And neither do you, really. What have you guys been using, and where can I get some?"

"If I knew, believe me, I'd be more than happy to make a buck selling it to you," he told her with a grin.

"Doomed to my old age," she sighed dramatically.

"Oh, come on," Bobby said, giving her shoulder a gentle shake, "don't tell me you think you're old. You still pass for a college student when you need to! Me, I get mistaken for high school kids' grandfather."

She giggled. "True, and I don't think Logan's ever going to let you forget that one."

"Hey," Annie called, slipping back under Mike's arm and eyeing the group warily, "what's so funny?"

"Bobby's old," Alex replied casually, then glanced up at him to observe his reaction.

He looked down at her with raised eyebrows. "And therefore you're here as the date of an old man."

"There was only one person elected Class Clown," Walt announced from the stage, interrupting Alex's answer, "because he was just that crazy. Oli Matthews, are you here tonight?"

Oli grinned, gave his friends a jaunty salute, and headed for the screen that was displaying a picture of him that made Alex appreciate just how hard it had been for Bobby to recognize him earlier. In his high school picture, Oli had hair down to his mid-back, tied into a messy ponytail, and a set of coke-bottle glasses that seemed to defy gravity by staying on his nose. He also sported, although Alex tried to be polite and not notice it, a face full of acne.

"Now _he's _changed," Dan exclaimed with a laugh. "Are we sure he's the real Oli and not just some imposter who snuck in tonight for the free food?"

"The eyes are the same," Alex replied without thinking. "If you look past the glasses, I mean. He has the same expression in them tonight that he did in the picture."

Why had she been paying such close attention to Oli's eyes? A pang of jealousy ran through him and Bobby tightened his arms around her in what he hoped was an imperceptible manner. "What kind of expression is that?"

"The look of a troublemaker." She settled back against his chest, making it clear without saying a word that she'd noticed his reaction. "My youngest brother used to have exactly the same look when he'd just done something he knew he was going to get into trouble for."

"Calm down, folks," Walt told the room, which was beginning to buzz with bored conversation. "I'm almost done - only two superlatives left. First, we have the winners of Quietest: Bobby Goren and Emily Andrews."

Alex practically had to pry his hands off of her to get him to let go and take a step away. She mouthed a silent _thank you _at Emily when the other women grabbed his arm and pulled. "Come on, Bobby. If I have to go up there, you do too."

"Go," Alex commanded, giving him a push. Turning back to the group when he finally heaved a sigh and followed Emily toward the stage, she grinned. "I guess some things never change."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Annie said with an equally large smile. "You ever seen any pictures of him as a kid?"

"No."

"Well, turn around and check it out," Annie ordered, twirling a finger to match the command.

Alex obeyed, not sure if she really wanted to look, and found herself staring at a picture of two people sitting on a low wall in front of a school. On the left, a tall, wiry boy sat with his legs dangling down far enough that his feet were flat on the ground. He had his hands over his ears as if to suggest "Hear no evil," and a shy not-quite-smile on his face that made it obvious that he was a good pick for the title "quietest."

Next to him sat a much shorter girl, her feet dangling six inches off the ground and her hands over her eyes to complement her companion's position. A pair of glasses dangled from one hand and her hair, like his, was a tad too lively, to put it charitably; both heads looked like they could use a once-over with a flatiron to prevent their hair from starting its own zip code. "Bobby and Emily?" Alex asked, stunned, even though she already knew the answer.

Susan, next to her, nodded. "Scary, isn't it? Looking at them now, you would think they couldn't ever have possibly been that . . . frowzy."

"Frowzy," Alex repeated. "That's a good description for them. I like that. And yes, you're right. I mean, I've seen Bobby when he desperately needs a haircut, but I've never seen his hair quite that . . . tall. And Emily . . . I can't even believe she's the same person. It's . . . oops, there they go," she broke off, watching as the two did their best to flee the stage without looking like they were running away.

"I'm taking comfort in the fact that we're going to see an equally embarrassing picture of Dom," Emily announced a few seconds later, noticing that no one seemed to want to say anything in front of them as she and Bobby rejoined the group.

"I'm taking comfort in the fact that I can get the hell out of here soon," Bobby muttered darkly, taking up his original position behind Alex with his arms around her waist.

"Aw," she teased, twisting around to look at him, "you were cute!"

Her movement shifted her shirt so that his fingertips were under it, and he daringly left them there as he gave her his best attempt at a jokingly dirty look. "I don't do 'cute,' Eames."

"Whatever you say," she told him with a smirk.

"Ok, guys!" Walt boomed into the microphone. "We're down to the last superlative, and then I'll let you get back to drinking yourselves into oblivion. So, without further ado, we have our two classmates who were Most Likely to Succeed: Dom Vincent and Susan Alexander!"

"Ah," Oli chortled, "we finally get to see the hermit!"

All eyes were on Susan as she kissed her husband and headed for the stage. Dom Vincent, an attractive, well-dressed man with graying hair, leaned down to give her a kiss on the cheek when he met her on the stage, and then the two of them turned slightly so they could see their yearbook picture.

Along with everyone else in the room, Susan and Dom burst into laughter at what they saw: two teenagers, a boy and a girl, dressed in identical men's business suits, standing in front of a desk scattered with Monopoly money and displaying huge grins for the camera while they threw handfuls of the play money into the air.

"I always liked the way they did that," Annie laughed. "Wearing the same suit, I mean. It's very . . . equal-opportunity, but without being too political about it."

"She doesn't look bad in it," Dave Hunt remarked, looking thoughtfully at the picture of his wife. "Maybe I should try to get her to stop wearing so many skirts."

"Bite your tongue!" Oli gasped. "Don't knock the skirts, they're way too enjoyable - on any woman."

"Oh, Oli," Alex sighed dramatically, "I was wondering why you hadn't asked me to marry you yet, and now I know - it must be the pants!" She swept her arm down her body, highlighting the fact that she was, indeed, wearing pants, and grinning as Oli's eyes followed her hand before he could stop himself.

"Well, I . . . uh . . ."

"Good thing I've got someone who _appreciates _my outfit the way it is," she added with a smirk, looking up at Bobby, who was frowning at her. She stuck her tongue out at his unhappy expression. "Right, Bobby?"

"Uh, what?" he asked, belatedly realizing that she'd been talking to him.

"You appreciate my outfit," Alex repeated patiently. "Right?"

He blinked, then pushed her away a few inches so he could see her bare back. "Uh, yeah . . . you could definitely say I, uh, appreciate it."

She grinned widely. "Guess we're just not meant to be, Oli. Good thing I prefer this guy anyway," she added, going up on her toes to kiss Bobby's chin, which was as high as she could reach without him cooperating.

"Cut to the quick," Oli moaned. "Go on Bobby - claim your prize."

"My . . . what?" he asked, slightly dazed by the conversation of the past few minutes.

"That would be me, Goren," Alex said with a roll of her eyes. "You get the girl."

There were a few seconds of silence as the entire group looked at him expectantly before he glanced at Oli, nodded, and looked back at Alex. "Good thing," he said, leaning down to give her a kiss. "I'd hate to have to explain to people how I introduced you to him."


	14. Rescue 911

When the dance music started back up again a few minutes later, Oli excused himself from his conversation with the reticent Dom Vincent and turned to Alex. "What do you say to throwing the loser a crumb? Want to dance?"

She glanced at Bobby, who shrugged but managed at the same time to look at Oli with narrowed eyes. "I want her back when you're done."

Alex gave his shoulder a push. "Oh, go get Annie to shrink your head some more. I'll have to come back, anyway - you're my ride home."

"Ok, Lassie," Oli said with a snort. "Enough with the goodbyes, I want my dance."

"Anyone ever tell you about a little thing called 'patience'?" she asked archly as she took his arm and followed him onto the dance floor.

"Yeah, but I decided it was a waste of time." He grinned down at her as he took her hand. "You're a lot shorter when you're not sitting on a bar stool, you know that?"

"So I hear. It works out ok, though. People underestimate me, but then I get to show them up."

"Like Jimmy Willis at dinner?"

"Exactly."

He looked thoughtful. "Maybe that's why Bobby's so protective of you."

"What, because I'm short? Nah, he's like that with all of his friends. I don't think he'd dare try to protect me from something he knew I could handle myself. Mostly because he knows I'd kill him afterward."

Oli winced dramatically. "Maybe we should all chip in to get you a punching bag for your birthday."

She shrugged. "No, I think I'll stick to beating up my date when I feel the need to hit something."

"For real?" he said, almost missing a step. "You don't . . ."

She freed one of her hands from his and gave him a playful whack in the side of the head. "Of course not for real! Trust me, if I made it through being groped by Jimmy Willis without hitting him, you know I know better ways to blow off steam than punching someone."

This time he did miss a step. "He groped you?"

"Tried to," she told him airily, "in a fumbling, too-scared-to-really-try-anything way."

He didn't doubt that she could take care of herself, but still . . . "Does Bobby know about that?"

" 'Course. He was sitting right next to me, it'd be hard to miss."

"And he didn't _do_ anything?"

She sighed. "You really aren't getting the hang of how he and I operate, are you?"

"Uh, guess not."

"He didn't do anything because I told him not to. If he'd said something, it would have become an open conflict, and that would have been dumb when I could handle it by myself without making it a big deal."

"What," he said, shaking his head wonderingly, "are you two telepathic, in addition to everything else? I was at the table the whole time and I don't remembering you saying anything like that to him."

"That's because I didn't," she said dispassionately. "I didn't have to; he already knew."

"I give up," Oli said resignedly. "You're not going to tell me whatever your secret communication method is. Hey, does it involve blinking a certain number of times for _yes _and a different number for _no_?"

"No, it involves me hitting him in the leg to remind him that he better not lose his temper." She blinked, realizing she'd just told him what he wanted to know. "Real smooth, Oli."

"Thanks, I thought so."

"How about you try dancing instead of pumping me for information?"

"Just call me Fred Astaire."

* * *

Bobby watched Oli lead Alex toward the dance floor and tried to hide his sigh.

"What's wrong?" Annie asked from near his shoulder. "You can't stand to be separated from her for a three minute dance?"

He shook his head. "No, it's not that. Well, I mean, I'd rather have her stay by me, but I can deal with three minutes alone."

"So then . . . what's the problem?" She glanced up at Bobby's close-lipped expression, then over at her husband a few feet away. "Mike, would you go get us some drinks?"

Mike cleared his throat and pointedly looked at Bobby a second too long, but did as she asked, heading for the bar.

"Ok, so quick, before he comes back," she said briskly, looking back at Bobby, "what's the problem?"

He sighed. "The things you said to Alex earlier . . ."

"Ah, so you finally grew enough balls to talk to her. Good for you!" She clapped him on the shoulder genially. "So, uh . . . why don't you look happy? Don't tell me she turned you down."

"No. Well, I didn't give her the chance."

Annie took her hand off his shoulder and gave him an accusing look. "You ran away? After I spent the whole damn night trying to set you two up?"

He held his hands up in supplication. "I didn't run. Neither did she. We agreed that we need to talk . . . just not tonight."

"You can't put it off, Bobby."

"Why not?" he replied, trying to sound carelessly confident instead of uncomfortably insecure.

" 'Why not,' indeed!" announced a new female voice. Annie watched, thunderstruck, as Janet Stapleton appeared from behind Bobby, smiling coquettishly and deliberately brushing against his arm as she moved to stand between him and Annie.

Bobby eased away a step and looked wordlessly at the newcomer. Across from him, Annie was giving the woman a disdainful look.

"Boooobby," Janet cooed breathlessly. "I thought you had left with that woman . . . and now I find that _she _left _you_! Don't worry, I'll keep you company so you're not alone tonight."

He was cursed. That could be the only explanation. Someone, somewhere, had placed a hex on his life so that every time he almost felt content, someone came along and ruined it. "I don't think that's a good idea, Janet. You sound drunk, maybe you should consider -"

"Going to _bed_?"

Annie watched helplessly, not sure whether to be amused or horrified, as Janet finished the sentence for him as she ran a hand up his arm in a blatant attempt to be seductive.

"I was going to suggest you find Jimmy and ask him to bring you home," Bobby replied in what he hoped was a neutral voice.

"Oh, Jimmy's _boring_! And he got fat, too," she pouted. "I like you better."

"Who doesn't?" Annie snorted, earning herself a malevolent look from the other woman. "You know . . ." she added, noting the discomfort on Bobby's face, "I think I'm going to go find Mike. You two kids have fun, 'kay?" There. If that didn't teach Bobby a lesson about procrastinating when she asked him a question, nothing would. She gave him a grin, wiggled her fingers in a wave, and disappeared into the crowd in search of her husband.

"Ahh," Janet purred, "alone at last. Dance with me, Bobby."

"I don't think that's a good idea. You're pretty unsteady on your feet," he told her, trying to avoid having to reject her directly. She was drunk and inconsiderate, but his conscience reminded him that she hadn't actually done anything really unpleasant to him or Alex tonight other than ask leading questions.

"Then I'll lean on you," she announced with a hint of triumph. "I want to . . . learn more about you tonight!" She tugged on his arm with surprising strength, startling him into taking an unsteady step after her. "Come on!"

He searched desperately for an escape route, but a few seconds later, found himself on the dance floor. He could remain polite for the length of a short dance, he told himself. That was, if she didn't try to wrap herself around him like she was currently doing. He stifled a groan of annoyance and searched the crowd for someone, anyone, who could come save him.

* * *

She wasn't expecting to hear the raw choking sound, and when Oli made a noise like he'd just swallowed his tongue, she jumped in surprise. "What the . . .?"

He continued to stare over her shoulder, dumbfounded, for a second before he pulled his eyes away and looked down at her. "Look over your left shoulder."

She did as ordered, eyes skimming the dance floor for the source of Oli's astonishment. Then she caught sight of it: Bobby and Janet, doing something that resembled dancing only in the vaguest way. Really, it had more in common with a game of tug of war. As he had been doing when she'd come upon him and Janet before dinner, Bobby was leaning his upper body as far away from her as he could; however, Janet seemed to be more determined this time and for every inch he tried to move away, she countered it with a movement toward him.

"Oh my god," Alex choked out after gaping at the pair for a second. "Oli, are her hands on his _butt_?"

Oli, his body shaking with silent laughter, managed a nod. "I take it all back. You don't need him to protect you - heneeds _you _to protect _him_!"

"Looks like I'm going to have to," she agreed, watching as Bobby tried to force Janet's hands up to somewhere less indecent. "Shall we?" Without waiting for Oli to answer, she adjusted her dance steps so that they were moving together to the side and then forward.

"What exactly are you going to do?" he asked.

"That," she said thoughtfully, "is a very good question. I'm open to suggestions."

"Normally, I'd suggest you force Janet to switch partners, but there's no way I'm letting her get that close to me tonight." He shuddered dramatically at the thought. "Ugh, definitely not letting her near me," he reiterated as they watched Janet try to kiss Bobby's neck and Bobby's look of discomfort morph into one closer to disgust.

"Well, there goes the best option," she responded with a sigh, trying to decide whether to laugh at Bobby's predicament or forcefully remove said predicament from where it was wrapped around his body. "I guess I could pretend I'm sick."

"Yeah, but then you'd have to go into the ladies room, and he can't follow you in there but Janet can."

They were jostled as they tried to slip between two couples dancing with more enthusiasm than self-control, and Oli smirked when he saw Alex absentmindedly elbow aside the man who danced into her path. "Watch it, buddy. Geez," she muttered, looking back at Oli, "I don't know how some people manage to get past their twenties without learning how much alcohol is too much for them

He snapped his fingers. "That's it."

"What's what?" she asked, confused about his reaction to her rhetorical statement.

"You can be drunk. That way you don't have to go to the bathroom, you just need him to, like, help you walk and stuff. Janet hasn't seen you since dinner, she has no idea how much alcohol you consumed - or didn't consume - since then."

"Oooh." She paused, considering that. "You're good. I think that'll work. How drunk should I be? Almost-sick, or just really dizzy and giggly?"

He quirked an eyebrow. "Personally, I want to see you do 'dizzy and giggly.' Somehow I can't picture it on you."

She grinned. "You should see my ditzy college student act."

"You're right," he said steering them closer to Bobby and Janet. "I think I'd enjoy seeing you act ditzy even more than I'm going to enjoy seeing you act giggly." They glanced over at their target at the same time, then looked back at each other and exchanged crafty smiles. "Ready to be drunk?" he whispered into her ear as they approached their goal.

As her answer, Alex purposely tripped over her own feet, lurching forward into Oli and knocking him, in turn, into Janet's side. "Ready," she whispered back, just before she giggled, let go of his hand, and made a semi-controlled swan dive into Bobby's arms. "Hey, partner," she slurred as he stared down at her.


	15. Functional kink

Oli grabbed Janet's arm to make sure she didn't go ass over teakettle from being bounced out of Bobby's arms, then hastily removed his hand as soon as he was sure she was steady. "Alex is . . . a little tipsy," he explained to her and Bobby with a sheepish smile that he was secretly rather proud of himself for dredging up. "Sorry."

"What the . . ." Janet began indignantly.

Her protest was interrupted by Alex giggling loudly. "Oli's a bad driver. We didn't hit anyone until I let him lead."

Bobby, who had initially found himself alarmed when she fell against him, was now remembering that she hadn't imbibed anywhere near enough alcohol tonight to go from zero to smashed in the three minutes since he'd last seen her. It took him another second to realize that she and her partner in crime had to be completely faking it for Janet's benefit, since Oli knew as well as Bobby did that Alex couldn't be drunk. Apparently his prayers for rescue had been answered after all. He grinned down at her. "You ok, there?"

"Little dizzy," she replied, noticing that the expression in his eyes had changed from concern to amusement and giving him an answering smile. "Maybe I shouldn't have had done that last shot."

He set her back on her feet without any assistance from her - she seemed perfectly content to let him hold her up all night - and agreed, "Yeah, maybe you shouldn't have."

Oli, although not privy to the conversation they were conducting in near-whispers, had seen Bobby's posture relax when he figured out what was going on. "Sorry, Bobby. I thought maybe you'd want to keep an eye on her while she's like this."

"You were taking care of her up to now," Janet snapped at him. "Why do you have to shove her at Bobby? We're busy dancing, if you couldn't tell!"

Alex, pleased that her current role allowed for it, giggled drunkenly again. "Dancing? Come on, Janet."

"Because she's not my job," Oli informed Janet, ignoring Alex's remark. "She's his. And I have better things to do than baby-sit a drunk cop."

Alex widened her eyes dramatically and stared at him as if he'd wounded her deeply. "You _do_?" she asked breathlessly. "Things better than _me_?"

"That," Bobby broke in, putting an arm around her shoulders and subtly pulling her toward him and away from Janet and Oli, "is enough of that. Oli, thank you for bringing her out here to me. Alex, honey," he went on, eliciting another giggle, this one startled, from Alex, "maybe we should get you home. Come on."

She smiled gaily at Janet, who was visibly angry, and gave her a wave as Bobby led her away. "Night, Janet. You really should stay away from those cream products."

They heard Janet's offended squawk mixing with Oli's deep laugh as they walked off the dance floor.

Bobby drew her to a stop near the bar and sighed. "Thanks," he told her, giving her a half-hug with the arm he had around her shoulders.

She slid an arm around his waist and rested her head against his arm. "Hey, what are partners for? And I did promise not to leave you alone with predatory women tonight."

"You're right, you did. How'd you get Oli to play along?"

"It was his idea, actually. He spotted you guys first. Me, I turned around just in time to see her grab your ass."

He scrubbed a hand over his face and groaned. "Let's not discuss that part. I think I'm going to have nightmares."

She wrapped her other arm around him, holding him in a loose hug, and shifted slightly so that her head was resting against his side. "Poor Bobby, to have women chase you no matter where you go. How you must suffer . . ."

He gave her a sour look, but at the same time, he moved his hand from her shoulders to the nape of her neck and slid his fingers into her hair. "Are you going to tell me how you and Oli came up with this, or are you going to keep making fun of me?"

She waited an extra second, just to make him wonder, before she replied, "He had been going on about how he's surprised you didn't say anything when Jimmy groped me at dinner, and I was trying to explain that you knew I could handle it myself. And then, with absolutely perfect timing, he spotted you and acknowledged that maybe I wasn't the one that needed protection. So we decided to rescue you. It was fun, actually."

"You play a pretty good drunk."

"Yeah? Maybe I should consider including it in my undercover repertoire."

"I don't know," he said thoughtfully. "We don't seem to require a drunk very often around MCS."

"Would have done me good in Vice, but yeah, I guess it's a little late now. Guess I'll have to keep letting you be the weird one."

He abruptly tightened his arm around her, making her yelp in surprise. "Uh, sorry. Just . . . Janet's watching us, and it looks like she invited Jimmy to the show."

She groaned and buried her face in his shirt. "What do we have to do to get the message through her thick skull?" she mumbled into the lapel of his jacket.

"Which message? That I'm not interested, or that you're drunk?"

"All of the above."

"Hmm." He looked down at her head lying against him, then back up at the pair who were watching them. "You up for doing something out of character?"

She snorted. "Have I done anything _in _character tonight? What are you thinking?"

"Pretend you can't keep your hands off me."

"Excuse me?"

"No, really. Come on, we're going to go chat with the gruesome twosome. Make it good."

She let out a sigh of resignation. "You _so _owe me when we get out of here."

"Yeah, I know. Let's go, start any time." He started walking toward the pair, pulling her with him.

Alex tripped over her first step completely by accident, taken by surprise by his sudden movement, but purposely kept up the unsteady walk as she started to follow him. "Hey, if you want me to be clingy, you've got to walk slow enough to let me cling."

"Sorry." He glanced down at her and slowed his pace, trying not to smirk when she grabbed his arm and pulled it around her while giving him a simpering smile. "Perfect," he whispered.

She grinned up at him and fluttered her eyelashes as they pulled to a stop a few feet away from the other couple.

"Janet," Bobby said conciliatorily, "uh, I just wanted to apologize for th-" He broke off in surprise as he felt Alex's hand slide up his back under his jacket. ". . . the interruption."

"Bobbyyyyy," Alex whined, tickling his neck just above his collar. "You promised we could . . ."

He retaliated by putting his hand in the small of her back, slipping his fingers under the bottom tie of her top. Chuckling with fake self-consciousness, he looked back at Janet. "It's been five years and we're still not out of the honeymoon phase."

"How . . . vulgar."

He felt Alex stiffen beside him, getting ready to shoot back an insult of her own - and that didn't figure into his plan of saccharine peacemaking. Doing the first thing he could think of to distract her, he yanked on the tie his hand was under, undoing one of the knots that held her shirt together.

He was gratified to see that the trick had had the intended effect. She gasped, immediately forgetting Janet's insult, and threw a hand around to catch the dangling string, hissing, "Bobby!"

"Hmm?"

"Re-tie that! Now!"

"Geez," Janet snorted from the sidelines as she watched Bobby duck his head to do as asked, "do you always do whatever she tells you?"

"Get a backbone," Jimmy added, deciding that he was a safe distance away and Bobby wouldn't come after him.

Alex suppressed a smile while Bobby went to work on her shirt. As insults went, the ones Janet and Jimmy had just lobbed were almost completely ineffective. Neither she nor Bobby was uncomfortable with the balance of power in their relationship, and comments about how Alex pulled his strings no longer fazed them. Just for the entertainment value, she assumed a thoughtful look and turned her head slightly. "I don't know . . . Bobby, do you always do what I tell you?"

"Only when you're the one with the whip," he mumbled carelessly, eyes still on her back.

After a second of startled disbelief, Alex broke into laughter so intense that she could hardly draw in a breath. Bobby calmly finished re-tying the knot he'd been working on, then remained bent over while he pressed his face against the back of her neck for a few seconds, just long enough that she could feel his lips curve into the huge grin he was trying not to let the others see.

Alex couldn't stop laughing, especially when she looked up and saw the flustered expressions on Janet's and Jimmy's faces. A fresh gale overcame her and she let herself collapse against Bobby, still shaking with giggles.

Bobby managed to compose himself fairly quickly, except for a tiny smirk that he couldn't get rid of. "We take turns," he informed the bug-eyed couple watching them, putting his arms around Alex with perfect aplomb when she slumped against him.

Finally getting control of her breathing, Alex pulled her face away from his chest and smirked at Janet, then affected a look of complete adoration and moved her eyes to Bobby. "Tonight will be my turn, right honey?"

"Oh, I don't know," he replied gravely. "After watching you in that outfit all night it might be hard to -"

"_Excuse us!" _Janet broke in.

They both looked up at her politely. "Yes?" Alex asked, slipping her hand back under his jacket.

"We're not interested in . . . that."

He managed to look surprised. "Really? Wow, I guess it's good I stopped dating you all those years ago."

"Yeah," the woman huffed, "I guess so. Ugh, why don't you and your drunk . . . thing just go home?"

"Now, Janet," Bobby chided her calmly, "there's no need for name-calling. Alex?" he added, looking down at her. "You ready?"

She slid her hand down from his shoulder to his waist and gave him a small squeeze. "Yep, ready."

They made it back to the bar before they were completely overcome with hilarity, but only barely.


	16. Departure

A/N: Ok, well, it's short, but at least it's here. I'm thinking maybe one or two more chapters to this story, if the plot stays the way it is in my head. But we all know how slippery those mental plots can be, so don't put money on me.

* * *

"What's so funny, kids?" Oli asked, popping up from behind the bar as he heard them approaching. "Let me in on the joke!"

Alex and Bobby looked at each other, then back to him. "We just started yet another rumor about Bobby's sex life," Alex told him.

Oli almost dropped the glass he'd just picked up. "Interesting," he managed after a second. "Is it a good rumor, or a bad one?"

"Good question," Bobby said. "I'm not really sure."

"Oh, come on," Alex teased, resting her head against his arm. "It's all part and parcel of the 'he's so big that he doesn't have to be dominant' rumor."

"Beg pardon?" Oli said.

Bobby just shook his head. "We just vanquished Janet for the . . . what was it, third time tonight?" he broke off, looking down at Alex.

"Something like that."

He kept his eyes on her as he began to speak again, even though he was addressing Oli. "And now we need to get out of here before she can take a fourth try."

"You guys can't leave this early!" Oli exclaimed. "Come on, we're just starting to have fun!"

"This," Alex said dryly, looking around at the drunk 40-somethings who filled the room, "is fun?"

He frowned, then grinned at her. "Let me fix you another drink. It'll seem a lot more fun then."

"No more drinks," Bobby interrupted, slipping his arm around her shoulders. "We're probably going to get called into work tomorrow morning, and I don't think either of us needs a hangover and a cranky partner."

"Who are you calling 'cranky'?" Alex teased, elbowing him in the side.

"Hey, guys," Dan said, appearing out of the crowd to stand on Alex's other side. "What's with the pow-wow?"

"Bobby and Alex want to leave," Oli informed him. "Something about work and cranky partners."

"Better than cranky computers," Dan said with a shrug. "At least you can hit a cranky partner. You guys are really going to go?"

They looked at each other again, each reading the unmistakable signs of weariness on the other's face. "Yeah," Alex finally said. "I think we're both about done for."

"That's what they all say."

All four of them turned to the source of the voice that had spoken. "Annie," Bobby said with a sigh. "Don't start."

"Who said I'm starting anything? Mike and I are tired too, actually."

"Oh," Oli said, pursing his lips disapprovingly, "I see how it is. All the couples are going to go off to bed and leave us poor singles alone at the reunion."

"Yep," said Bobby with a nod.

"Pretty much," Annie agreed. "Maybe you can meet the love of your life after all us married folk have cleared out."

"Already found mine," Dan announced with a grin, wrapping an arm around Alex's waist and giving her a playful squeeze.

"Hands off, bucko," Alex said, slapping lightly at his wandering fingers.

"Yeah, hands off," Oli echoed, managing to bump Bobby slightly out of the way and put his arm around Alex's waist from the other direction. "I've got dibs on her."

Alex rolled her eyes and stood still while the two men pretended to duel over her. "Have I mentioned tonight that I'm _really _glad no one's got a video camera?"

"So you think," Susan spoke up from behind her, taking a man's wrist in each hand and pulling them away from Alex.

"Thanks, Susan," she said, pretending to dust off her clothes. "Grabby hands wrinkle clothing, boys. I should charge you for dry cleaning." A second later, as Susan's first words penetrated her brain, she whipped around to face the other woman. "What do you mean 'so I think'?"

Susan pressed her lips together, trying to keep from laughing at the look on Alex's face. "Sorry to burst your bubble, but there's been a professional videographer wandering around all night. You've been recorded, whether you know it or not."

She stared at Susan for a long second, then glared up at Bobby. "So help me, Goren, if that video gets out . . ."

"Hey," he said, raising his hands in surrender, "you think I want people to see video of Janet Stapleton climbing all over me? If I'd known, I'd have tried to keep us away from the video guy."

" 'Scuse us," Emily Vincent spoke up as she ducked into the circle the group had unconsciously formed. "Just wanted to say good night to you all . . . Dom and I are about ready to head home. Uh, Alex . . ." she added, letting her voice trail off as she took in the cluster of men standing around the detective. "Are you still trying to decide who you're taking home with you?"

Alex snorted. "Hell no. Bobby's just got desperate friends. We were just getting ready to go, too."

"Looks like it's about time to go, then," Annie said, elbowing Dan out of the way and taking Alex's arm. "Quick," she whispered into the other woman's ear, "let's move before they regroup."

Alex grinned at her, then looked back at the two men to give them a wink. "Sorry boys. Looks like I've been claimed. Night!"

A chorus of groans followed the two women as they walked away. "Too bad I was never this popular with men in real life!" Alex exclaimed, glancing back at Mike and Bobby, who were following them at a distance.

"It's all real life, hon," Annie said with a smirk. "It's just that you only care about being popular with one man. And," she added, following Alex's eyes over her shoulder, "you're definitely _very _popular with him. Did you guys get things worked out?"

Alex's step faltered slightly. "We . . . called a truce, I guess you could say. We agreed not to talk about it until after tonight."

"Hmm. He's taking you back to your place now?"

"Uh . . . as far as I know," she said dubiously, not having thought about exactly what they were going to do once the reunion was over. "He certainly won't take me to his apartment, not unless I ask him to. Maybe not even then."

"Ask!" Annie urged, nudging her. "Don't let him just drop you off at home. He'll -"

"- start working on forgetting this ever happened," Alex finished for her. "I know. But it's . . . complicated. We work together, for god's sake."

"So what? I heard what Emily told you about the department loving you guys. I'm telling you, Alex, go for it!"

Alex carefully extricated her arm from Annie's grip as they approached the parking garage. "That's a lot easier to say than to do."

Both women looked back to check on the men's progress. When they looked back at each other, Annie gave Alex a challenging look. "Oh, come on. Just make him take you to his apartment - you don't have to do anything else. Just make sure you stay in his head!"

"Is that how you got your husband?" Alex shot back, raising her eyebrows. "Refusing to leave him alone?"

"Actually, it kind of was," she admitted. "But that's a story for another day."

"Oh, not fair!"

"What's not fair?" Bobby asked as both men jogged the last few steps to catch up with the women.

"Nothing," Alex said, glaring at Annie.

Rather than looking cowed, Annie looked amused. Taking her husband's arm, she started to walk away, then pulled Mike to a halt and looked back over her shoulder at Alex. Giving the other woman a wink, she shook her head teasingly. "Just do it, Alex."

Alex frowned at her retreating back, making a conscious effort not to shout a retort.

"What's she talking about?" Bobby asked, stepping into her line of sight and ducking his head toward her. "Just do what?"

"Nothing," she said with a shake of her head. "So, uh . . . you ready to go?"

He looked at her for another second, clearly not satisfied with her dismissal of the subject, then sighed. "I'm ready if you are."

She was aware of him eyeing her back as she climbed into the car, and she hid a smile at the knowledge that, as hard as she found it to mentally dismiss him, he was having an even harder time getting her out of his consciousness. "Bobby?"

"Yeah?" He didn't look at her as he responded, keeping his attention on the ignition key as if it needed psychic encouragement.

"Did you . . . have fun tonight?"

Surprised by the question, he looked up at her. "Of course I did. I told you that."

She nodded slightly. "Good. I, uh . . . so did I." She fell silent, waiting for him to make the next conversational overture and resolving not to speak until he gave her some indication that he was interested in what she had to say.

Fifteen minutes later, they were still sitting in silence when Bobby pulled the car to a stop in front of her building. "So . . ." he murmured awkwardly. "Uh, thanks for coming."

She didn't respond for a moment as she examined his face, noting the tension he was trying to conceal. "You're welcome, Bobby. Thank you for inviting me," she said, making no move to get out of the car.

He looked up at her, cleared his throat, and looked away again. "You're welcome."

A heavy quiet settled over the car as Alex watched Bobby and Bobby kept his eyes on his shoes.

"Goren?" she finally said softly, reaching out to touch her fingers to his cheek.

He blinked, finally raising his eyes to her face. "Yeah?"

"Why don't you park the car and come inside? I think we have some talking to do."


	17. Summation

He followed her up to her apartment in silence, directing his eyes at the ground whenever she looked back at him. Back at the party, he'd almost started to believe that he could get through the coming conversation without making a fool of himself, but things were no longer looking quite so promising on that front. He wasn't sure if she was going to laugh at him for chickening out or kick him out of the apartment for leading her on, but either way, he was pretty much doomed.

"Bobby?"

"Huh?" He looked up, startled, and found her watching him with bemusement from just inside the door of her apartment.

"Are you going to come in, or just study the hallway floor?"

He hesitated, wondering what she would say if he opted for the hallway floor."I, uh . . ."

"Bobby," she sighed, taking his arm and giving it a tug, "you just spent the whole night pretending you were in love with me, but you're still scared to walk into my apartment, which you've been in a million times before? That's ridiculous."

"Sorry," he mumbled, reluctantly allowing her to pull him over the threshold. "It's just . . ."

"Weird," she supplied matter-of-factly.

"Well, yeah."

"Well, too bad," she shot back, sounding more amused than annoyed. "Come on, two more steps and then I can close the door. I promise not to kill you in the next few minutes."

"Ok, but Eames -"

"Alex," she corrected firmly, pushing him slightly to the side so she could shut the door behind them.

"Alex," he repeated obediently. "You just, uh . . . I . . . don't really know what I'm, uh . . . what I'm doing."

"First thing you're doing is following me into the kitchen so we can sit down," she informed him, moving toward the room in question. "That work for you?"

He nodded wordlessly and followed her.

"Good boy." She patted his arm and motioned him to a wooden chair that flanked the kitchen table. "Sit. Stay."

How could she be taking this so lightly? He felt like he'd taken a flying leap off a cliff and was still waiting to find out if there would be a net below him, and she was merrily puttering around her kitchen making what looked like coffee? "Alex, aren't you -"

"Don't," she interrupted him sharply, turning to face him and accidentally scattering a scoopful of coffee grounds across the floor on the way. "Shit."

Bobby felt himself relax a tiny bit. She was obviously more nervous than she was letting on. At least that made two of them who were jittery about this conversation! "Sorry," he murmured, moving off his chair to sweep up the scattered coffee using the napkin that had been lying in front of him.

She waved a hand at him dismissively. "Leave it. I'll get it later. I'm just a little . . . jumpy."

"So am I," he said quietly.

"Oh, wonderful," she groaned with a roll of her eyes. "One of us panicking is bad enough; if both of us are nervous, this conversation is going to crash and burn."

"You're nervous?" he asked tentatively, not sure he hadn't just imagined her saying that to make himself feel better. "Really?"

He sounded like a little boy asking Santa Claus if he was really real, she thought. "You bet your ass I'm nervous, Goren. Believe it or not, I don't do this kind of thing every day. Now, you want coffee?"

He shook his head. "No. I think I just want to . . . you know, uh . . ."

"Get on with it?"

"Yeah," he mumbled guiltily.

"Ok." She dropped into the chair across from him and folded her arms on the table, resting her chin on them. "How do we do this?"

"I . . ." He looked away from her, focusing on the pile of coffee on the floor, just so he could keep his eyes on something that couldn't see the emotion in them. "I'm not sure. We . . . I'm not sorry I kissed you," he blurted before he could lose his nerve. "I just . . . wanted to say that."

Her lips quirked in a small smile at that and she reached out and covered his hand with one of her own. "I'm not sorry you kissed me, either. I guess the question now is, would either of us be sorry if we did it again?"

Bobby had no easily-constructed response for that. "I . . . Ea - Alex, this is . . . I mean, we're not supposed to . . ."

She tightened her grip on his hand pointedly. "Forget that part for now. I want to talk about what _we _want, not what the rule book says we have to want."

"Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh'." She let her head fall backward until she was staring at the ceiling, wondering how the hell they were going to get this decided without one of them running away screaming. "Bobby?"

"Yes?"

"How did it feel to you tonight? To be . . . able to touch me and talk to me like that, I mean."

"How did it . . . feel?" he repeated blankly, taken aback by the blunt question. "It . . . it felt good. Almost, uh, natural. I mean, well, it didn't feel odd, like it should have."

"If we were really just putting on an act, you mean?"

"Yes."

Wishing that she didn't have to steer this conversation, but knowing that if she didn't, it would go nowhere, Alex took a deep breath and scooted her chair closer to his until they were almost touching. "So it felt right to you?"

He nodded wordlessly.

"If the job wasn't an obstacle . . . if we didn't have to worry about that . . . where would you want to go from here? Wait," she added when he opened his mouth, knowing that he was about to try to brush off the question. "Don't lie to me, please. Whatever you say, I'll respect it and I'll accept it, but please just answer the question, and answer it honestly."

His eyes locked on hers, unable to disguise his shock at being called out before he'd even tried to lie. "I want to . . . that is, if I could, I'd like to . . ." He forced his stuttering to a stop and took a deep breath, then let it out. "I want . . . you," he finally managed, almost in a whisper. "But it's . . . we both know how many ways that could go wrong, and . . ."

"And you're afraid to try and fail?"

"No," he protested, "not exactly. I'm . . . maybe I'm more afraid of trying and _not_ failing."

"Hmm." She rested her arms on the table again, watching his face closely. "And if it starts to work, then you're on the tightrope, waiting for me to leave again. That's it, isn't it, Bobby? You'd almost rather stay in limbo than take the chance."

"Look, Alex . . ."

She smiled gently. "Annie knows you better than I gave her credit for. _This _is what she was trying to tell me about you when she had me alone."

"Ok, wait. I'm not saying that I don't . . ." He sighed and shook his head. "I'm not quite as bad as she thinks I am. It's been years since she knew me really well. It's not that I'm afraid to try, Alex. I'm more afraid of what it will do to you . . . if it works."

"The job?"

"The job."

She put her head in her hands and sighed. "That's what I was afraid of. You need to weigh them, I guess."

"Weigh what?" he asked, slightly confused.

"Weigh the good things it _will_ bring against the bad things it might bring."

"You're . . ." He swallowed. "You've already done that for yourself?"

"Yeah . . ." she said quietly. "Yeah, I think I have."

"And you want . . ."

She nodded, not needing to hear him finish the sentence to know what he was asking. "And so now I'm asking what you want."

"You want . . . you want me?" he said dubiously.

She just looked at him for a second, then surprised both of them by jumping to her feet. "You actually have to ask me that?"

"Uh . . ."

"Bobby." Taking his face between her hands, she bent down until she was nose-to-nose with him. "We can do this. If you want it, _we can do this_."

They stared at each other for a long moment, the tension rising.

Then, just when Alex had straightened up and was preparing to back away and admit defeat, at least temporarily, she found herself held in place by his hands as they seized her waist. Drawing in a surprised breath, she looked down at him. "Bobby?"

"You're right."

"I'm right about wha - whoa!" she broke off as he pulled her forward until she stumbled and landed on his lap. "What was that about?"

"You're right," he said again. "You're right, Alex. I'm making excuses to avoid putting me - us - on the line."

"Ok, but -"

"_And_," he went on, drowning out her reply, "you're right that we can do this."

"Ok . . ." She was looking at him warily now, hopeful but still too unsure to allow the hope to show.

Not bothering to reply, he slung an arm around her neck and pulled her in for a hard kiss. "Annie was right, too."

"Right about what?" she mumbled against his lips, making no move to pull away.

"Me inviting you tonight . . . it had nothing to do with convenience."

* * *

_One year later . . ._

Arriving home after a long day, Annette Lombardi scattered the pile of mail that was sitting on the kitchen counter, scanned it for anything that looked interesting, and found nothing, then shrugged out of her turn-out coat with a tired groan.

"That you, hon?" Mike called from the den, where he had been watching TV. "You got mail."

"Really?" Annie asked. "Like, mail that doesn't involve a bill or someone trying to sell me something?"

"Not unless your old boyfriend's quit being a cop and turned to junk mailing."

She spun back toward the counter and sifted through the mail again. "Something from Bobby? Where is it?"

"In here." His voice was accompanied by the sound of rustling paper as he shook the envelope in question. "Had an annoying feeling you'd be interested."

"Quit it." She stalked into the den, glaring her displeasure at his show of jealousy. "Give it over."

Mike, without moving from his easy chair, tossed the heavy envelope toward her.

"Damn, what is this thing?" Annie muttered to herself as she pried open the flap. "It's heavy!"

"Beats me. You could try opening it to find out."

She stuck her tongue out at the back of his head and dumped the contents of the envelope onto the coffee table. "Holy shit . . ."

Her stunned tone of voice got her husband's attention. "What?" he said uneasily, turning to see what she was looking at. "What's wrong?"

Annie continued to stare at the card in her hand for a second, then looked at her husband and grinned. "Hope your good suit still fits."

"What? Why? Let me see," he demanded, holding out his hand expectantly.

She obliged, passing the thick cardboard to him, and watched as he read the message she'd already memorized:

_Robert Goren and Alexandra Eames_

_Cordially invite ANNETTE LOMBARDI and MICHAEL LOMBARDI_

_To a "reunion" for all chess nerds, law enforcement misfits, and forensics geeks_

_Location: Eames residence - 1027 Sunnyside Dr., Long Island, NY_

_Date: March 2, 2007_

_Wedding Ceremony: 2 pm_

_Reception: 3:30 pm_

_Attire is semi-formal_

_Please RSVP to 555-3247 by Feb. 1_

* * *

THE END

A/N: Oh man, I think that's the cheesiest ending I've ever written, for anything, but I just liked the bookending of the invitations at the beginning and then at the end. And so it concludes . . . plagued by lagging updates and unrealistic plot points, but finished nonetheless!


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